Chasewater as it was mapped in 1884. This was a 1:2,500 scale draft by the Ordnance Survey. There is a correction tear near the north of the lake - sorry, that's done by the mapping service to keep the sheet accurate. Click on the image for a larger, legible version, but be warned - it's 7 meg in size, so could take a while.

Further to Graham Evans’ request, here’s a map of how Chasewater was around the late Victorian era. There’s much that’s of note here – the shape of the lake, the pits and surrounding railways. Note also that Jeffrey’s Swag doesn’t appear to exist. This map has taken about three hours to assemble from a mixture of digital and printed fragments – all from the same 1884 series, which is the earliest at this scale. It has been priced together using digital imaging software on an Apple Mac – without this, the job would be much harder.

You can download a PDF file of this map by clicking this link – it’s just over 14 meg but well worth it for the quality of image. I’m hoping to turn this into a Google Earth Overlay at some point – others will follow as time permits. I’d like to do the 1919 particularly, although that could be tricky technically. Please stay tuned.