Mapping Swansea


Have you ever gone to a new place and got lost without a clue where you are going? I have! Whilst visiting London, I have wandered the streets not knowing where I am. Then I rummage in my pocket to find a copy of a map, and to discover that I was only a few roads away from my destination.

In this piece I am looking at Ordnance Survey, cartography and the cartographers who have produced these maps.



We must go back to 1791, when Britain fell seriously behind other European countries that had started their own mapping during the 1750s. It was Midsummer Day, 1791, when Ordnance Survey was established. The agency’s name indicates its original military purpose which was to map Scotland in the wake of the Jacobite Rising of 1745. There was also a more general and nationwide need in light of the potential threat of invasion during the Napoleonic Wars.



The earliest survey of the country used the technique called Principal Triangulation of Great Britain, which was a high-precision trigonometric survey. Work was carried out by the Board of Ordnance, governmental department from 1791 and this process was still in use until 1853; with the first maps of Kent and part of Essex, known as The Mudge Map, having been produced during January 1801, in response to the feared invasion by the French. These beautiful maps, forming part of the 60,000 maps belonging to King George III can be found in the British Library, London.


One of the first maps to be produced for Swansea was drawn during 1813 by the draughtsman, Thomas Bugden. The plan is of the Gower peninsula, Swansea Bay, and the development of Swansea harbour at the mouth of the River Tawe. I have enlarged the Swansea part of the map, and already we can see that some well-known places in Swansea have been labelled. Unfortunately, we must wait till the first census in 1841, to see who resided at these places. This map has been drawn using ink, instead of being engraved.



The next major map that was drawn of Swansea, was during 1852, by the Local Board of Health. The map is drawn to a huge scale of 10 feet, showing the town in immense detail. Anyone interested in these maps can obtain a CD from the archives.
The First Edition map by the Ordnance Survey of Swansea, was published in 1878, with surveying work being carried out since 1867 with the scale of 1:2500 (1 cm on the map is equal 250m on the ground), as was the Local Board of Health. This map shows buildings, walls, hedges and even trees around the centre of Swansea. The Second Edition was produced in 1899, with surveying work starting in 1896. 

The Revised Edition was produced around 1920, with surveying carried out as early as 1914 and finally the Further Revised Edition was produced in 1947, with surveying work starting in 1936. However, there may be parts of Swansea that have been mapped out earlier than the final dated edition.


 The surveyors of these early maps were ex Royal Engineers – an officer having been given the title of Master-General of Ordnance, but the post was eliminated in 2013. One notable Master-General of Ordnance, was the hero of Waterloo, Richard Hussey Vivian, 1st Baron Vivian, brother of John Henry Vivian. In the portrait it shows Richard wearing his uniform of the Master-General. In this article I have provided maps of Gloucester Street, Swansea.



Following an excellent series aired on BBC2, A House Through Time, presented by David Olusoga, the ‘House’ in question was 62 Falkner Street, Liverpool. A house randomly picked to chart its history from its first inhabitants of the 1840s and 50s, to the present day. Posing a question, could this be done here in Swansea? I have already started!



In a previous article that I wrote in February 2017 titled History of a House, I made a start by looking at the history of 2 Gloucester Place with Stirling Benson, JP, who seems to be a man of mystery, not having completed the 1841 census. At this time there were just five houses and a public house, Gloucester House, which has long gone. During 1889 a murder was carried out and the landlord was brutally murdered. Gloucester Place has a small number of houses brimming with history, just waiting to be discovered.



If anyone who lives in Gloucester Place is interested in establishing the history of their house, please contact me. In fact, if any reader would like the history of their house researched, please contact me



Copyright – The Bay Magazine – March 2018

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