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Nicholsons guides - when did they switch from the vertical B&W maps.


booke23

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I've got a 1995 7th edition North still in that format. Presumably the others are too.

I don't worry much a bout which edition I use as the canals and locks haven't moved about much since.

ETA I really dislike the new format, and anyway all the old ones have got my favourite moorings marked, though they aren't much use for finding shops any more!

Edited by Arthur Marshall
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34 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:

I've got a 1995 7th edition North still in that format. Presumably the others are too.

I don't worry much a bout which edition I use as the canals and locks haven't moved about much since.

ETA I really dislike the new format, and anyway all the old ones have got my favourite moorings marked, though they aren't much use for finding shops any more!

 

Thanks Arthur. I dislike the new format too so I'm looking to buy some more old ones from ebay. Looks like 1995 was the last of the old format. 

 

I've actually got a 1904 Bradshaw's canal guide and it's still pretty reliable for canal features, although it has no maps and the toll fees are slightly out of date!

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8 hours ago, Arthur Marshall said:

The 1997 one is in the new format. You should be able to tell because the system got split into six or seven regions as opposed to north, central and south, which were all old format.

Those darn canal restorers. Costing us more in guide books.

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9 hours ago, booke23 said:

 

Thanks Arthur. I dislike the new format too so I'm looking to buy some more old ones from ebay. Looks like 1995 was the last of the old format. 

 

I've actually got a 1904 Bradshaw's canal guide and it's still pretty reliable for canal features, although it has no maps and the toll fees are slightly out of date!

Me too. I find the new ones hard to follow, though my wife likes them because the OS plates show pathways etc fir walks. Pearsons just confuse me, though the bumpf is good. I made a box with a perspex lid so the open map can sit on the hatch without blowing away or getting wet, not that on a canal you really need to know where you are anyway.

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I gave up with map books some 15 years ago, just take pot luck on stops, shops and pubs.  It adds a certain frisson to the days boating.

If I really need to know where I am Google Maps  does a fairly good job of telling me 😱

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2 hours ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

Those darn canal restorers. Costing us more in guide books.

I want them to get on with the Montgomery as I have the Nicholson edition which includes it.

 

Alec

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My vertical Nicholsons date from the 80's.

 

When we purchased a share in our first shareboat in 1992 it came equipped with a full range of new Nicholson's. They were spiral bound and had the maps with a permanent north at the top of the page and colour photos. The range had increased from 3 to 6 IIRC and has increased further since.

Edited by cuthound
Clarification
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I still have a full set of the Five hardbacks which made up the first edition. £2.95 each;  North  South East and West and  the last book published was The Midlands, which included a really good section on the BCN.  The coverage of each book is based on the then territory of the four BW regions. 

 

N

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3 hours ago, BEngo said:

I still have a full set of the Five hardbacks which made up the first edition. £2.95 each;  North  South East and West and  the last book published was The Midlands, which included a really good section on the BCN.  The coverage of each book is based on the then territory of the four BW regions. 

 

N

 

My 1980's Central Nicholson's has an excellent small BCN overview map (without distances on it) which I still use.

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6 hours ago, BEngo said:

I still have a full set of the Five hardbacks which made up the first edition. £2.95 each;  North  South East and West and  the last book published was The Midlands, which included a really good section on the BCN.  The coverage of each book is based on the then territory of the four BW regions. 

 

N

I have these in limp covers,  plus the 6th one (the CAMRA real ale guide to the waterways) published in the same format, with the central (midlands) -scale maps, bought new for 10p in a remainder bookshop.  The first edition limp cover guides were originally 75p, later increased to  £1 50 as '70's inflation took off. 

Edited by Ronaldo47
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7 minutes ago, Up-Side-Down said:

So far no one has mentioned either the stand alone Thames guide or the Fens and Broads guide which ran to only one edition published in 1986. These were both in the old format.

I have the Fens one, I may even have two

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On 17/01/2023 at 14:05, BEngo said:

I still have a full set of the Five hardbacks which made up the first edition. £2.95 each;  North  South East and West and  the last book published was The Midlands, which included a really good section on the BCN.  The coverage of each book is based on the then territory of the four BW regions. 

 

N

Same with me , a full set of the old ones. Useful for seeing pubs which are no longer😒

 

Also a a full set of the current ones, some well worn. Just  recently picked up 3 of the current ones from a charity shop at £5 each, unused.

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  • 2 weeks later...

A wee piece of background to the change to the current format:

 

In the early 1990s, Ordnance Survey announced that they would not be producing any more single-colour mapping (the base mapping for the original Nicholson guides was black and white and the blue was an additional, in-house layer, added together with all the boating info) and that Nicholson Waterway Guides would have to make do with the seven colour maps or go without altogether!

 

The publishers (and I can't remember where we were with mergers and whether it was Bartholomew's or Collins by then) agonised for some 15 months and finally agreed to go with the all-singing, all-dancing, colour maps. Meanwhile, the editor David Perrott, had come up with the current division of the waterways into seven regional titles, plus of course the map and briefly, in 2022, a Scottish book (replaced by a fold-out map) to coincide with the restoration of the Lowland Canals. The Broads coverage followed in 2010, adopting a somewhat lack-lustre format using 1" mapping and a totally different presentation ......... now, thankfully, scrapped and totally aligned with the seven other regional guides and their 2" scale of mapping.

 

Whilst there is overlap between the content of different guides I can't fault the way David went about things with a view to minimising the number of different books required to make up rings and the like. After all the bulk of new sales will be to hirers and those unlikely to be regular boaters. In their latest incarnations, paddling information is starting to appear in recognition of the popularity of canoeing, kayaking and paddle boarding. 

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The original guides - 2 inch to the mile on monochrome background, were published by Nicholson and BW. Thus some idd waterways made it in (Bridgwater and Taunton, Pocklington, Montgomery) whilst others far more useful were left out. There was an interim version at half inch to the mile, I can't remember whether BW stopped paying or pulled out altogether but it was a financial/viability issue. Then the OS stepped in and adopted the guides as part of their series, brought back the 2 inch base but reduced them to three guides, north, south and central. 

 

Then someone completely rejigged the series to the seven we have now - which has added a few waterways not previously covered. Swansea, Neath and Tennant Canals for example.

 

I've got at least one of each guide in my collection, as well as all the old straight line guides that preceded them. 

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1 hour ago, magpie patrick said:

 

I've got at least one of each guide in my collection, as well as all the old straight line guides that preceded them. 

Does that include a full set of he original BW straight line cruising guides?  I think there were nine of them?  If so I shall do jealous🙂.

N

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8 minutes ago, BEngo said:

Does that include a full set of he original BW straight line cruising guides?  I think there were nine of them?  If so I shall do jealous🙂.

N

Um - yes it does... there were 12 I think (the collection is in the office. I'm at home) including unlikely candidates such as the Fossdyke. There was also a later addition with a pamphlet in the same style for the Stourbridge Canal when it reopened (I've got that too 😜

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