"English Civil War Road Networks" Topic

I have been googling to locate maps with existing road networks in England, Scotland and Wales for the English Civil War. I have found maps for topography, major cites, rivers, etc but nothing with road networks.

So does anyone have any links to period maps with the road networks? I am also curious about geography for ECW such as major forests, woods, marshes, swamps, etc.

If you can't find a good 17th Century source, a bit of educated guesswork with a modern map can tell you a surprising amount. Most of the current main road network is based on very old roads. Some of them originally Roman.

On a modern road map you want to be looking at roads classified as 'A' roads. These are often modern upgrades of old routes. Modern roads tend to bypass towns in a big loop, but in the 17th Century would have gone straight through. Lower numbered roads in particular are a good guide. The A1 and A2 for example have been there for centuries.

Another thing to look for is very straight roads. These are usually Roman.

Some major routes have fallen out of use, such as the old drovers' roads over the Pennines.

Ignore the motorway network, numbered as M-something. These are all modern.

Hope that helps a bit!

Great advice above. Another thing you could do is use Avalon Hill's 'Kingmaker' or one of the newer GMT games -don't think much changed by the ECW.

So does anyone have any links to period maps with the road networks?

Period maps (e.g. the Speed maps of 1610) did not include roads, presumably because roads were not thought so important in the 17th century as they are today. Indeed, I have heard that in that period, people tended to navigate from village to village using church towers and spires as land marks.

Roads did not appear on maps of England until the late 17th or early 18th century.

maybe not exactly the right time period, but I am planning an ECW campaign using the 1644 campaign system using the two UK maps on this site:

murat.ca/maps.htm

They might not be what your exactly wanting, but they might help.

"Another thing you could do is use Avalon Hill's 'Kingmaker'"

iirc in Kingmaker there is only one road, The Great North Road (or A1, as it is now).

As suggested above, the A road network gives a reasonable idea of the location of tracks connecting population centres. Britian is a densely populated island where people have lived for thousands of year, the entire country is criss-crossed with tracks, generally the easiest path from A to B although taking a perverse delight in going straight over hills instead of continental fashion switchbacks.

Of more significance to a campaign are the major watercourses with few decent crossing places, particularly the Severn and Trent which really, really canalise movement.

"I am planning an ECW campaign using the 1644 campaign system using the two UK maps on this site:"

Those maps are great, apart for the curious omission of the Pennines north of Derbyshire. If only it really was flat ground between Manchester and Sheffield!

The 'Britain' map is a little peculiar in the (for the ECW period, critical) Midlands … the inclusion of Milton Keynes (nearly all of it created from the 1960s onwards) is an oddity whereas Daventry (which was important in 1644 and 1645) is not there.

The main roads in most of history for the region are the Roman Ermine Street (the Great North Road) and Watling Street (the modern A5) … the two roads link through Northamptonshire on the line of the modern A43. These are very important highways in the 1645 campaign.

For the ECW comparatively small rivers (too small for such maps) have a big effect … the Cherwell runs from Northamptonshire into the Thames at Oxford … it controls much of the military manoeuvring in the key zone between Oxford and Northampton shaping the battle of Cropredy Bridge as well as minor battles around the Oxford defence lines at Gosford and Islip.

As Major B says, road maps are a bit of an anachronism … contemporary maps have churches, rivers and bridges … You need to know where the bridges are. They are key and there will usually roads associated with them.

If you superimpose the locations of 17th Century towns and villages on a Roman road map you pretty much have it.

Phil

link

you might find something here

Great thread and discussion!

Thanks all! I really like the maps from Sheldrake. Those are very close to what I need. Interesting how roadnetworks developed.

Myself, the oldest map I have found so far with forests and roads is this one from 1842-1852. But that is 200 years later. Still looking for something older.

link

The idea of a 'road network' in 17th Century Britain makes me smile. As others have said – some residual Roman roads plus some ancient tracks – Salt roads and drovers roads (road in name only) make up most of the known ways.
For a slightly later account to get a flavour you can do worse than read some of Celia Fiennes account of her travels round Britain in the late 17the century. You can read quite a lot of it for free here:

link

Do any of the Ordnance Survey historical publications include roads?

Ogilby's Britannia volume the first could be what you need. You can pick up a useable 1939 reprint for £10.00 GBP-15.

I'd suggest that all of the rivers in the period were almost all larger than they are today, some very significantly so. Many of the lesser UK rivers have been pretty much devastated by over abstraction and many can be easily waded across today but were very significant obstacles during the ECW.

Watch out for canals and reservoirs – Osprey got it hysterically wrong in their ECW campaign title First Newbury 1643. On page six is a map titled England 1642 and this includes Rutland water, a man made reservoir built around 1975!

Settlement sizes altered considerably with the coming of the railways – towns like Swindon and Crewe were just tiny villages at the time of the ECW. Many towns and cities at the time were pretty much within the confines of the city walls.

There's a good article in a very early Miniature Wargames about the general landscape at the time of the ECW. There was far, far more open ground of heathland type and greater forestation, as you'd expect.

And very few hedges or walls in rural areas at this time.

-----Ogilby's Britannia volume the first could be what you need. You can pick up a useable 1939 reprint for £10.00 GBP GBP-15.------

Very nice. Olgivey lived from 1600-1676. His England and Wales maps are on line here:

link

His big map has a road network. I am assuming the major roads. It doesn't show major forests, hills or swamps except where they intersect with roads in the road panels. Interesting style of map also.

Also I noticed there are useful road networks in many of the Osprey ECW maps.