Wednesday 31 July 2013

John Pitchford's Witham

Pitchford's Witham 1733 plus lidar base
John Pitchford's 1733 map of the course of the River Witham from Lincoln to Boston, produced at a scale of 2 and a half inches to the mile (1:25,344), unfortunately does not survive. This version 'correctly reduced and drawn from the original' in 1734 is at nearer 1:80000. Nonetheless, a very accurate piece of survey for its day. It shows the route of the river prior to improvements in the 1870s. Neither of the Projected Cuts laid out here were ever undertaken, the final scheme taking a route inbetween the two. The map is overlain onto a lidar map produced from Environment Agency data showing the detailed topography of the valley and the Witham fens and the course of the prehistoric estuarine river.

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