I came across this ordnance map some years ago on a Facebook post. I had heard inklings of it in the Sherlockian world, but hadn't seen it for myself. Once I had, it never left the opened tabs across the top of my laptop. Honest! I have it there all the time. (And it's always right next to the Search the Canon tab.)
I spent some time familiarising myself with all of the different symbols and initials, and found that some of them took more time than others. (I realize this may not be new information to some of you, but there are others who may not know. This is for them.) Let's take a look at a section of Baker Street that has some examples.
This one area has several things in it we can explore. First is the ventilators. These are pretty self-explanatory, and deal with the Underground running right under the area. You'll notice the letters B.O. Ordnance map sites that list what abbreviations are don't have this one. It took a bit more looking, and we'll get to what I found it in a minute.
The letters F.P. stand for Fire Plug. These were spots in the road or street where a plug in the water main below could be accessed by the fire department. There are thousands of these all over this map. They're not the same as fire hydrants, but they were the first (sort-of) version of them. Also in the picture is P.L.B. This is for Pillar Letter Box. You know the ones I mean...
See the letters C.R. on the map? That is for Center of Road. Off to the left side of the shot (that you can't see) is the phrase Div. of Parly. Boro. Bdy. (Division of Parliamentary Borough Boundary) and the C.R. notated exactly where that boundary was. These don't always run right down the middle of a street, however, and like any other boundary line it can go almost anywhere. P.H. is for Public House. England was pretty proud of these as they appear everywhere, and sometimes multiple ones existed within just yards of each other. They weren't always the nicest of places, but they still made it on the maps.
Now let's look at B.O. I have yet to find an ordnance map legend that has these initials on it. I had a suspicion it was for either Booking Office or Boarding Office. A bit more research led me to my answer:
This paragraph is from an article called 'Booking Offices at Baker Street' by a Brian Pask from 2019. (Sorry about the size.) It talks about the very ones in the section from above and thus ends the mystery of the B.O.
Here's another section that has a few others...
Sticking with the fire thing we find F.H. here. That's for Fire Hose. In a few places I saw just the letter H. According to the abbreviation lists it stands for a hydrant, and that makes sense to me. On the right you see the words Fire Alarm. There are more examples on the map, this is just one I found that doesn't use the initials F.A. for that. The letters D.F. at the top of the shot is for Drinking Fountain, and since it's in a park it might've been a bit more obvious than others. (I like to be thorough, though.)
The numbers that you see on both sections of map here are heights above sea level for mainland Great Britain. You'll notice that sometimes they accompany the letters B.M. That's where we'll pick it up next time.
Side note:
I get emails quite a bit from people who want to know what site I use for this or that, and where I get my information, and so on and so forth. I answer all of them, but I thought I would answer a couple of them with this post by saying that this is my go-to map. I will spend time just studying it, and it's still surprising to me what nuggets I can mine out of it.
Again, I know this won't be new to some of you, but I like being very open with what I do, and if someone out there can use this and continue (or add to) the research, then I'm all for it.
Anyway, the other half of this will be in the next day or so. I'll see you then, and as always...thanks for reading.
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