Monday 27 September 2010

The Ordnance Survey Guide to the Broads and Fens

Anyone who has ever cruised the East Anglian waterways will know the Imray Guides. They have simplistic maps, dreadfully out of date information, and ours are covered in additional notes, in an attempt to make them useful. The far superior Nicholsons' Guides use extracts from the information-rich OS maps, and are much more useful at giving a sense of context. The other day, I discovered that Nicholson USED to do a guide to the Boads and Fens, in a similar style to the current canal guides. Quite why they stopped is a mystery, but the last edition of these guides was in 1986, and they went out of print in the early 90s.


On discovering that this guide used to exist, I set about finding a copy. Even that far out of date, it would be interesting to look at, if not actually genuinely useful as a companion (or replacement, if sufficiently updated with notes and current mooring sites) to the Imray guides. I found a copy at Awesome Books, for 64p! This morning it arrived. I have not had time to look at it in great detail, but it's very interesting, and a revelation to see maps of the fen waterways in some kind of context. Happy to scan bits of it for people who are interested, although it is a strage format that doesn't fit on A4.

The general format is much the same as the new Nicholsons Guides


Baits Bite Lock, with no guillotine gate!

3 comments:

  1. For the grand sum of 64p i think we will purchase one of those. We intend to take NC to the Broads next year with a trip up the Nene later in the year so the book would come in handy even if its a little out of date!!

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  2. they have reprinted a guide for the fens this year nicholson have though i do not know if it is very detailed.Your book looks very interesting ,love the black and white half tones.Were there any more?

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  3. Hi,

    Have just pulled out my copy - they are excellent - even marked up with our first trip down the Nene in 1990, eg. Fotheringhay to Peterboro, and back to Peterboro Y. club (exellent night)29.06.90. Towed a broken down boat. They gave us a bottles of Gin and and Whisky. Those were the days.

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