(see also Nottinghamshire Civil Parishes - names for unnamed areas)

What fun (not) this is.

A fantastic amount of work has already been put into the OSM map by masses of folks in the past. In this diary entry I document myself trampling all over some of their work and (hopefully) leaving all the good bits intact as I make nips & tucks to correct some errors introduced from NPE maps & stuff in the past in addition to adding a hole (which is what, in effect, an unparished parish is).

The source material for these edits is csmale’s GPX downloads derived from the 2016 OS .shape files. Those include the latest corrections to all UK BoundaryLines.

I’m absolutely terrified when editing these sorts of things! By the nature of Boundary Lines there can be several boundaries within the same line. In OSM a boundary is established as a Relation. That relation’s members are the ways that constitute the totality of the boundary. There are 6 different levels of administrative boundary, from Border, external (admin_level=2) (with the Irish Republic) down to the Civic Parish (CP) (admin_level=10). By the nature of it, each lower level consists of sub-divisions within the larger boundary that is the level above it.

Then it swiftly gets more complicated. There are also Ceremonial boundaries (I have zero idea as to the difference between it & an Administrative boundary). And there are others, some of which — in my darker moments — I begin to think have been invented, just for malicious fun.

To illustrate, here is a current tally of boundaries within the area that I started at, at a spot where both Derbyshire & Nottinghamshire County boundaries meet Warsop CP (southern tip):

1. name=Derbyshire; boundary=ceremonial
2. name=Nottinghamshire; boundary=ceremonial
3. name=VC56 Nottinghamshire; boundary=vice_county; ref=56
4. name=Derbyshire; boundary=administrative; admin_level=6 (County)
5. name=Nottinghamshire; boundary=administrative; admin_level=6
6. name=Bolsover; boundary=administrative; admin_level=8 (District)
7. name=Mansfield; boundary=administrative; admin_level=8
8. name=Shirebrook CP; boundary=administrative; admin_level=10 (Civic Parish)
9. name=Warsop CP; boundary=administrative; admin_level=10

Now, you may well think — and you would have a point — that this level of detail is far too much. The issue, for me, is that I dare not do anything unless I understand things at that level of detail. As an example, I’ve just changed the ‘Warsop Civic Parish’ name from “Warsop” to “Warsop CP”, and could only do that because I can back up the name-change from both documented sources & also from depth of understanding of the issues involved.

This post was prompted because I’ve just shifted Rainworth CP + Rufford CP boundary line a smidge from it’s NPE-designated meeting with the Mansfield, Newark and Sherwood (districts) & Clipstone CP boundary lines. I ended up using Unnamed_shape_5861.gpx, Rainworth CP.gpx + Mansfield district.gpx to be able to convince myself that yes, that node needed nudging. Really, I wanted those that worked on it before me to know that I was showing the best respect to their work that I could muster.

Moorhaigh Bridge

Aargh! A complex of boundaries come together near the Moorhaigh Bridge and, unfortunately, the Mansfield + Ashfield District boundaries that come together up from the south had been joined at the wrong point to a vast plexus of boundaries coming down in 2 streams from the north (Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Bolsover district, Ault Hucknall CP + Pleasley CP). The joint had been made as a single point on an unclassified road next to Newboundmill Lane, whereas the OS BoundaryLines all said that it happened as 2 joins, with the second to the south close to where the 2 streams met & the bridge crossed them both.

I’m starting to get good at this relation surgery, so here is how to do it:

1. In JOSM, switch OFF File | Download OSM Data Continuously
2. Identify the correct boundary relations
   (I’ve had to use Ashfield District.gpx, Pleasley CP.gpx, Nottinghamshire County.gpx, Mansfield District.gpx + Unnamed shape 5861.gpx to be certain of the correct routes)
3. For myself, select the Mansfield/Ashfield plexus + the join-node & use Alt+J (Tools menu) to disconnect the node from the Mansfield/Ashfield way.
   (That leaves the main way + Pleasley way intact & disconnects Mansfield/Ashfield from those ways)
4. Re-join the free end of Mansfield/Ashfield in it’s correct location (‘M’ for menu: Tools | Merge Nodes)
    
   (There is now a strip of the main way which wrongly has Mansfield as one of it’s relations, and is missing Ashfield as a relation)  
5. Select the new join-node + main-way & press ‘P’ (menu: Tools | Split Way)
6. Select the main-way between the old join-node & new join-node & select ‘Mansfield’ in the Memberships window & delete it.
7. Now to add the missing-snippet for Ashfield
   Whilst the split-off way is selected, press Alt+Shift+R (menu: Windows | Relations), select ‘Boundary[8] (Ashfield)’ relation + press the Relation Editor button. The split-off way was selected in the rhs window, and one of the buttons added it as a member in the lhs window (the first time I’ve been able to do that!). It also needed a role of ‘outer’ applying.

The final item was to make sure that I could get all members to join up in a circle. It is very likely that some of the members will not yet appear in the editor (they will show as ‘incomplete’). Selecting such a member will make a “download incomplete members” button available. Alternatively, a similar option is available via a right-click from the Alt+Shift+R Relation window. For that I pulled the view back a long way (using the ‘-’ button) and “walked the bounds” as described at the bottom of my original post on Nottinghamshire Civil Parishes. I was successful in that act. Hooray!

I’m now going to do the same for the Mansfield district boundary and then, hopefully some time soon, I shall be able to add this Unparished Parish.

(later same day)
2 unparished-parishes entered:

1. Mansfield + Mansfield Woodhouse
2. Kirkby-in-Ashfield + Sutton-in-Ashfield

The first was horrible due to needing to fix mistakes in existing Boundary Lines. The second was fiddly, but easy.

A lesson from both is that there are un-referenced level-10 admin boundaries originated from NPE maps but without any name nor Relation. I was able to re-use one for the ashfields above, but others simply need deleting.