Post-war OS maps released showing Newton Abbot in detail in 1956

After WW2 the government set about mapping larger towns and cities in Britain, a major project completed over the period 1944 to 1973, with Newton Abbot covered in 1956 in 52 maps at scale 1:1250

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This series of maps are now available online and, best of all, they are all out of copyright as they are over 50 years old. There is a knack to finding them and downloading them which, whilst relatively easy for me as a geographer, is not as straightforward as it could be.

Like all historic maps they are available from the National Library of Scotland, where all Ordnance Survey mapping is digitised and stored. You will be looking for “Ordnance Survey National Grid maps, 1944-1973”, then enter the place-name (‘Newton Abbot’) and take it from there. Note there are two different ways to view the maps: one is of each individual map sheet and the other is of a zoomable overlay. I prefer the latter.

Link to NLS website

Of interest to me…

I was born in 1956 so these maps are of personal interest. I can clearly see my place of birth (one of the maternity wings at Newton Abbot hospital) and the place where my grandfather died – the ‘other’ Newton Abbot hospital, a group of buildings opposite the cemetery on the Totnes Road. How many of you remember that?

The railway station was enormous, especially with the goods station – some of whose buildings remain – and Hackney sidings, the largest marshalling yards west of Bristol.

Newton Abbot power station rarely appears on maps of this time, presumably because of the strategic value of energy infrastructure; there is a big white space on this map where the station and its cooling tower were. The site is now occupied by housing on Templers Road and Hameldown Way and was opposite Tuckers Maltings.

The best and biggest cinema in Newton Abbot – The Odeon – is clearly marked, bringing back memories of me as a child enjoying Saturday Morning Pictures. Oddly it is marked as the Odeon ‘theatre’. The Alexandra was a theatre; did the Odeon also double as a theatre?

Newton Abbot market looked impressive in those days, with cattle markets, sheep pens, the Butter Market and a Market Square worthy of the name rather than the dull and treeless monstrosity we suffer today.

I can clearly identify my grandmother’s 2-up 2-down cottage in Wain Lane – still there today – with its outside toilet and coal shed. No bathroom of course. How my grandparents brought up three daughters in such a tiny house I will never know. But they did.

Penn Inn was very attractive in those days, with its swimming pool, paddling pool, miniature railway, boating pool and parkland – all now obliterated by a roads, including a flyover – and Sainsbury’s.

Anyway, old maps certainly bring back memories! I suspect I will return in future with more stories based on old maps…