The Nicholson Guides are a set of books originally published by Robert Nicholson Publications, then jointly by
Bartholomew
Bartholomew (Aramaic: ; grc, Βαρθολομαῖος, translit=Bartholomaîos; la, Bartholomaeus; arm, Բարթողիմէոս; cop, ⲃⲁⲣⲑⲟⲗⲟⲙⲉⲟⲥ; he, בר-תולמי, translit=bar-Tôlmay; ar, بَرثُولَماو ...
and the
Ordnance Survey
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, and now by
HarperCollins
HarperCollins Publishers LLC is one of the Big Five English-language publishing companies, alongside Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan. The company is headquartered in New York City and is a subsidiary of News Cor ...
, as guides to the navigable and un-navigable waterways of England and Wales (and, more recently, Scotland).
History
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
Lock(s) may refer to:
Common meanings
*Lock and key, a mechanical device used to secure items of importance
*Lock (water navigation), a device for boats to transit between different levels of water, as in a canal
Arts and entertainment
* ''Lock ...
, 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
The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the The Isis, River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the Longest rivers of the United Kingdom, se ...
, so in 1969 he published ''Nicholson's Guide to the Thames''. With the rise of leisure boating in the early 1970s,
British Waterways
British Waterways, often shortened to BW, was a statutory corporation wholly owned by the government of the United Kingdom. It served as the navigation authority for the majority of canals and a number of rivers and docks in England, Scotland ...
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
A penny is a coin ( pennies) or a unit of currency (pl. pence) in various countries. Borrowed from the Carolingian denarius (hence its former abbreviation d.), it is usually the smallest denomination within a currency system. Presently, it is th ...
, 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:
:''1 South East''
:''2 North West''
:''3 South West''
:''4 North East''
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.
The fifth edition in 1991 included 5 books:
:''1 South''
:''2 Central''
:''3 North''
:''River Thames''
:''Broads & Fens''
7th Edition 1995, by this time Nicholsons had been an 'Imprint' of HarperCollins and was back down to four books, with a fifth publication being the first foldout small-scale map covering Great Britain.
:''1 South''
:''2 Central''
:''3 North''
:''River Thames''
:''Guide to Great Britain''
A major change occurred in the mid-1990s, when Ordnance Survey announced that the two-tone maps should be replaced by full-colour maps. Nicholson's had been taken over by Bartholomews, and they had subsequently been taken over by HarperCollins. Throughout, David Perrott, who had been an apprentice of Robert Nicholson in 1969 when the first Thames book was produced, had remained as editor. Collins wrestled with the Ordnance Survey ultimatum for some 14 months, before deciding to proceed with full colour mapping, and seven regional guides were produced, in a format which was still current in 2019. They also produced a fold-out waterways map, and later guides to the Broads and the Scottish Canals. Surprisingly, research had been conducted by offering the researchers money to pay for bed and breakfast, and a contribution towards fuel for a boat until this time, but with the new editions, remuneration of the researchers was finally covered by a commercial agreement.
The 1997/2000/2003/2007 editions were extended to 8 books:
:''1 Grand Union, Oxford & the South East''
:''2 Severn, Avon & Birmingham''
:''3 Birmingham & the Heart of England''
:''4 Four Counties & the Welsh Canals''
:''5 North West & the Pennines''
:''6 Nottingham, York & the North East''
:''7 River Thames & the Southern Waterways''
:''8 Scotland, the Highland and Lowland Waterways'' (only in the 2003 edition)
There are also two small-scale fold-out maps, one covering Great Britain in its entirety, and one of Scottish waterways.
From 1997 the maps became A5 format, and maps were in full colour, with the canal overlaid onto the current OS map of the time, north was fixed as being at the top of each page.
Jonathan Mosse became part of the research team in 1989, and his first major contribution was to cycle the towpath of the
Kennet and Avon Canal
The Kennet and Avon Canal is a waterway in southern England with an overall length of , made up of two lengths of navigable river linked by a canal. The name is used to refer to the entire length of the navigation rather than solely to the cent ...
, then reaching the end of a lengthy restoration. His work was added to the Southern guide. The policy had been to update all of the guides every three years, but this has been revised so that two or three guides are updated each year. The guides have also been reworked to reach a wider audience, by the inclusion of any waterway that can be followed from one end to the other, on foot or by bicycle. Thus the Northern Reaches of the
Lancaster Canal
The Lancaster Canal is a canal in North West England, originally planned to run from Westhoughton in Lancashire to Kendal in south Cumbria ( historically in Westmorland). The section around the crossing of the River Ribble was never complete ...
were added to the 2019 reprint of the ''North West and the Pennines'' guide.
See also
*
Canals of the United Kingdom
The canals of the United Kingdom are a major part of the network of inland waterways in the United Kingdom. They have a varied history, from use for irrigation and transport, through becoming the focus of the Industrial Revolution, to today's ro ...
*
Waterways in the United Kingdom
Water transport played a vital role in the UK's industrial development. The beginning of the 19th century saw a move from roads to waterways, (i.e. canals, rivers, firths, and estuaries).
Rivers in the United Kingdom
Major navigable rivers inc ...
Bibliography
*
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References
{{Reflist
External links
Inland Waterways Association shop
Travel guide books
Canals in the United Kingdom
Maps of the United Kingdom