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Nicholson Guides
The Nicholson Guides are a set of books originally published by Robert Nicholson Publications, then jointly by Bartholomew and the Ordnance Survey, and now by HarperCollins, as guides to the navigable and un-navigable waterways of England and Wales (and, more recently, Scotland).
The large-scale Guides were mainly intended for people traveling by boat along the river or canal, but now include a number of non-navigable waterways. Generally, each page includes a map of a section of the waterway with features such as bridges, locks, boatyards and services. Each section of the map includes references to nearby pubs, towns and villages, roads and railways.
Robert Nicholson had published a series of guides to London in the 1960s, before realising that there was nothing about the River Thames, so in 1969 he published Nicholson's Guide to the Thames. With the rise of leisure boating in the early 1970s, British Waterways commissioned Nicholson to write a series of guides to their waterways, in a similar style to the Thames book. In order to research them, a boat was chartered, Paul Atterbury and Andrew Darwin were asked to write the material, and a student was hired to drive the boat. The guides documented eating places near to the canals, points of interest that could be easily visited, and every facility for boaters that they found, from water points to winding holes. Between them, they developed a style which lasted until the 1990s. The first edition sold for 75 pence, but by the early 1980s the price had increased to £1.50.
The format was a tall thin book which had the canal running top to bottom of each page, with the location north being adjusted to suit this format. Often pages had the canal 'straightened' mid page, with the location of north changing at the split point.
The first edition came out as four Guides:
A fifth Guide, The Midlands, came out in the early 1980s. The first series of guides were produced as pocket-sized hardback books.
In 1981 the 'second revised edition' came in only three chapters; 3 North, 2 Midlands, 1 South and dropped the British Waterway Board affiliation. This edition was printed in two colours, black and blue, with the line of the canal being picked out in blue on an otherwise black and white map.
In 1985 the 'second edition' , now titled 'The Ordnance Survey Guide to the Waterway' published by Nicholsons had four guides: 3 North, 2 Central, 1 South. Thames (and Wey). By this time, the format had changed to spiral-bound paperback books, and a fifth guide, covering the Fens and the Broads in a single book was added in the late 1980s.
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Nicholson Guides
The Nicholson Guides are a set of books originally published by Robert Nicholson Publications, then jointly by Bartholomew and the Ordnance Survey, and now by HarperCollins, as guides to the navigable and un-navigable waterways of England and Wales (and, more recently, Scotland).
The large-scale Guides were mainly intended for people traveling by boat along the river or canal, but now include a number of non-navigable waterways. Generally, each page includes a map of a section of the waterway with features such as bridges, locks, boatyards and services. Each section of the map includes references to nearby pubs, towns and villages, roads and railways.
Robert Nicholson had published a series of guides to London in the 1960s, before realising that there was nothing about the River Thames, so in 1969 he published Nicholson's Guide to the Thames. With the rise of leisure boating in the early 1970s, British Waterways commissioned Nicholson to write a series of guides to their waterways, in a similar style to the Thames book. In order to research them, a boat was chartered, Paul Atterbury and Andrew Darwin were asked to write the material, and a student was hired to drive the boat. The guides documented eating places near to the canals, points of interest that could be easily visited, and every facility for boaters that they found, from water points to winding holes. Between them, they developed a style which lasted until the 1990s. The first edition sold for 75 pence, but by the early 1980s the price had increased to £1.50.
The format was a tall thin book which had the canal running top to bottom of each page, with the location north being adjusted to suit this format. Often pages had the canal 'straightened' mid page, with the location of north changing at the split point.
The first edition came out as four Guides:
A fifth Guide, The Midlands, came out in the early 1980s. The first series of guides were produced as pocket-sized hardback books.
In 1981 the 'second revised edition' came in only three chapters; 3 North, 2 Midlands, 1 South and dropped the British Waterway Board affiliation. This edition was printed in two colours, black and blue, with the line of the canal being picked out in blue on an otherwise black and white map.
In 1985 the 'second edition' , now titled 'The Ordnance Survey Guide to the Waterway' published by Nicholsons had four guides: 3 North, 2 Central, 1 South. Thames (and Wey). By this time, the format had changed to spiral-bound paperback books, and a fifth guide, covering the Fens and the Broads in a single book was added in the late 1980s.