please empty your brain below
Absolutely great stuff - really interesting material that I would not have found myself. It's why I read your blog. Thanks

Brian | 29.05.13 - 12:41 a.m. | #

While mapping... can anyone who's been along Waterden Road since it reopened help with getting it mapped on Google Maps: https://www.google.com/mapmaker

And if anyone knows when pedestrians will be allowed to walk along there I'd be very interested...

| 29.05.13 - 3:01 a.m. | #

I've walked both the Capital Ring and London Loop and have made a start on the London Countryway, but the Green Belt Way is news to me.

The London Countryway has been around since the 1970s; there is an out-of-print guidebook by Keith Chesterton, plenty of copies of which are knocking round on second-hand book websites. It is a complete circuit, between 13 to 31 miles from the centre of London and coming to within 1 mile of the Greater London boundary at the closest. Full details are at www.ldwa.org.uk. It is almost the same length as the Greet Belt Way at 215 miles but, despite some overlap, the routes do appear to be quite different.

THC | 29.05.13 - 9:00 a.m. | #

I can testify that Citymapper is a fantastic App, I used it on my last trip to London, thanks to DG for the tip.

| 29.05.13 - 9:21 a.m. | #

Wow, thanks for the mention! I'm just an amateur who fancied the challenge of putting it all together, I make no particular claims of kosher-ness (and feel free to correct/suggest). I cross-referenced roughly with other sources like Edith's Streets and Tom Bolton's book, but what you've done particularly well in your write-ups is describe where the *contours* are. Anyway, thanks again, and keep up the good work!

David Fisher | 29.05.13 - 9:33 a.m. | #

I'm pleased that the two apps you've chosen to promote use both the major smartphone OSes, rather than just Apple. Kudos!

Jamesthegill | 29.05.13 - 9:52 a.m. | #

Thanks for recommending Citymapper, it looks great, but unfortunately is written for i-phone 5s. For those of us with older i-phones (mine is a perfectly good iphone3, now 4 years old)this is an increasingly frequent problem.

Peter | 29.05.13 - 11:18 a.m. | #

Always find your blog so interesting and informative - the citymapper is such a useful device. Thanks for the info.

| 29.05.13 - 12:25 p.m. | #

See above

Dave | 29.05.13 - 12:26 p.m. | #

(Answering my own question - got a reply to an email to LLDC)

Waterden Road is currently open as the retail lifeline to service Westfield and as it is a private road travelling through a construction site this road is closed to pedestrians and cyclists. This area of the Park will open at the end of July and this point the road will open to pedestrians and cyclists.

I would advise that you do not walk along the road at present as security will stop you.

| 29.05.13 - 2:28 p.m. | #

Peter - I run Citymapper on an aged Iphone 4. It works a treat.

Dan | 29.05.13 - 3:07 p.m. | #

I'd argue that Citymapper is not just the best London travel app, nor the best travel app but is the best app full stop.

Mark | Homepage | 29.05.13 - 6:53 p.m. | #

Can I also add I use Citymapper on a slightly decrepid iPhone 3GS and it works perfectly.

Mark | Homepage | 29.05.13 - 7:04 p.m. | #

The Park Grid idea reminds me of “mapcodes”. This is a system which can identify any spot on earth down to a few metres using a simple code. For example, the mapcode for a point between the two Pen Ponds in Richmond Park is GBR 8W.TJZ. The GBR prefix can be dropped if you’re working solely in the UK.

Postcodes are fine as far as they go, but they’re UK only and they only identify buildings with addresses. The summit of Snowdon (mapcode 5S.BL9H) doesn’t have a postcode. Neither does that spot in Richmond Park – the nearest postcode is 700 metres away at the Royal Ballet School.

Currently, mapcodes are not recognised by Google Maps, Streetmap etc, but TomTom have just upgraded their satnav software to support them, which might give the idea a significant boost. There’s more information at www.mapcode.com.

A plug for Open Street Map as well. This is a collaborative effort to produce a copyright-free street map of the world. It’s improving all the time, and it’s the mapping behind apps such as “Maps with Me”.

David L | 29.05.13 - 7:17 p.m. | #

As there is a café and visitor centre a few yards from the summit of Snowdon, it ought to have a postcode (probably the same as for the Snowdon Mountain Railway station at Llanberis).

Stephen Bird | 29.05.13 - 9:06 p.m. | #

David L. mapcodes look interesting and like QR codes I can see they'd have uses where brevity is paramount but I'd much rather have a lat/long - pref (D)DD MM.mmm but that might just be the geocacher in me...

That way give me two points and I can see if they're close (I can calculate the (rough) distance (fairly) easily without reference to complicated data tables) and I understand the system without referring to a reference document. Additionally it's apolitical.

| 29.05.13 - 9:28 p.m. | #

forgot to mention...
parkgrid seems even worse - glympse etc are much simpler to my mind

| 29.05.13 - 9:30 p.m. | #

Stephen,
Good point about Snowdon - I should have chosen Scafell Pike instead.

David L | 29.05.13 - 9:53 p.m. | #

I've taken part in this a few times
http://www.greenbeltrelay.org.uk/

Running Correspondent | 29.05.13 - 11:01 p.m. | #

longitude was political once - and to this day some French cartographers define the Prime Meridian as 2°20'14.03" west of the Paris Meridian

timbo | 31.05.13 - 4:06 p.m. | #

timbo - fair point about where 0 is (I'd chosen to conveniently forget that) though as it happens have been up the hill in Greenwich today.

It does avoid the country picking bit though...

re the something odd - some slightly dodgy quote escaping by the look of it

| 31.05.13 - 9:04 p.m. | #

Didn't the French agree to use our meridian and in return we would use their units (SI)? They were quicker about their end of the deal than us! Perhaps it's just a myth, but I thought I heard it on QI (doesn't guarantee it's not!). If it's not, thank goodness it's that way round.

Jim | 01.06.13 - 12:53 a.m. | #











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