Talk on OS Abbreviations and words
Great Britain 1:50 000 Scale Colour Raster Mapping Extracts © Crown copyright Ordnance Survey. All Rights Reserved. Educational licence 100045616.
Abbreviations and descriptive words on OS Maps
This article has the text of a talk given at the Geograph Conference in Southampton in February 2010. Links to images and maps have been added.
Note that maps may have changed since the talk was prepared, so words and abbreviations mentioned may not be on current maps.
Features on the ground may be represented on Ordnance Survey maps by symbols, abbreviations, descriptive words or specific names, depending on the space available on the map. In Geograph we have photos of many such features and with help from other contributors on the discussion forum I have put examples into articles.
We have photos illustrating every type of symbol on 1:50,000 scale maps, and have put map extracts and thumbnails into the articles listing them.
There is a list of abbreviations

Some missing ones are no longer current, for example an abbreviation for Mental Hospital. Others I haven't found but probably exist, e.g. Cas for Castle.
The abbreviations we have seen on maps do come from the standard list - we have found just a couple not on the list, HMYOI for Her Majesty's Young Offenders Institution and ELDR for European Long Distance Route and we have told OS Customer Services about these.



Descriptive names are those defining the character or use of a feature, for example Recreation Ground. I have listed those I have found on 25K and 50K maps as two articles, Descriptive words A to M and Descriptive Words N to Z.
According to the 1975 Harley book they came from a standard list, but from around 500 examples we have collected it seems as if this standardisation has been abandoned. For example we have:
- Activity Centre SD9036 : Coldwell Activity Centre
- Adventure Activities SD7912 : Burrs Activity Centre
- Outdoor Centre NS1658 : Greycraigs Outdoor Centre
- Recreation Centre TQ9374 : Barton's Point Coastal Park
- Sports Centre TL3515 : Wodson Park Sports Centre
- Sports Village TG2011 : Norwich Sports Village and Hotel.
Antiquities get special treatment. They have Gothic type for non-Roman, Sans Serif capitals for Roman. And they get descriptive words even if there is a standard symbol for the feature - we have a lighthouse and a windmill as words in Gothic lettering.




It does seem that sometimes what is included depends on the whim of the cartographer. We have areas particularly along boundaries where individual trees are marked - we have Ash, Oak, Elm (which has probably succumbed to disease), Field Maple, and even Thorn which I wouldn't expect to be a long-lasting tree.
Elm and Thorn on 25K Map

Ash and Oak on 25K Map

Field Maple and Oaks on 25K Map

There doesn't seem to be a distinction in lettering style between descriptive words and specific names. Sometimes it is not obvious which is intended. Rabbit Warren seems to have become a name of an area rather than a place where there are rabbits. Peace Pagoda appears in Milton Keynes and is probably specific - the one in Battersea Gardens doesn't get a mention although there is enough space available for the words on the 25K map.




It may be obvious, but what is on the map depends on the space available. Anything on Dartmoor has space for wording, even "Letter Box" which is an unofficial one, not a Royal Mail one. Of thousands of cinemas, I have seen the word "cinema" only on the map for one which is large and is on the edge of a town, Nuneaton.




So all that stuff is my obsession at present. More examples are welcome. And I hope to find a way to show 25K map symbols and examples, as I have done for 50K.
As a postscript, at the conference OS staff told me that the symbols themselves can be copied freely without asking for copyright permission. So I will be able to compile an article showing and illustrating symbols on 1:25,000 scale maps.
David Hawgood
Feb 2010
Great Britain 1:50 000 Scale Colour Raster Mapping Extracts © Crown copyright Ordnance Survey. All Rights Reserved. Educational licence 100045616.