(see also Nottinghamshire Civil Parishes - names for unnamed areas + Dinnington St. John’s CP Repaired + Renamed)

Bassetlaw district

I’ve acquired a taste for renewing boundary lines. It consists of (what I call) “Walking the Bounds” (in plain-speak, following a boundary upon the OSM map in JOSM, either clockwise or widdershins) and, together with the appropriate OS_BoundaryLine checking that the existing boundary is accurate for 2016. I’ve just completed doing that for Bassetlaw. It took 2 days and was a horrible experience.

Much of Bassetlaw had already been corrected to the OS, but the rest required the necessary nips‘n’tucks to bring it back into good order. That was good fun; I enjoy the feeling of bringing the map into good order. Folks in the past did the best that they could with the tools & equipment available at that time. We have much better references & tools now, and especially with the government’s astonishing OpenData declaration and the subsequent data releases from Ordnance Survey.

I also took the time to correct the multiple variants on source=OS_OpenData_BoundaryLine. I also found that great fun (I’m deeply anal). However, it still took a full-time 2-day slog (we are talking 12-hour days here) and was far more difficult than it needed to be… The Bassetlaw.gpx is 154.9km which is big, but should hardly represent 2-days of breaking your bones against unnecessary obstacles… The point here is that, once again, I kept coming up against situations in which the admin BoundaryLine had been merged with a river, or a road, or a field boundary, or a wood, or a… gaah…

<rant>

• The OS_BoundaryLine is a philosophical concept, used to delineate within which parts of the Country certain governmental bodies have responsibility to act. It may change at any time upon the map due to changes in government, more accurate determination, etc..
• A River is a physical channel upon the ground established (usually) by the action of water across time. It may change at any time due to human or climatic intervention, more accurate determination, etc.. It has zero connection otherwise with any OS_BoundaryLine and both may alter their line independent to each other.
• A Road is a physical channel upon the ground established (usually) by the action of humans across time. It may change at any time due to human or climatic intervention, more accurate determination, etc.. It has zero connection otherwise with any OS_BoundaryLine and both may alter their line independent to each other.
• A Field Boundary is a combination of survey & philosophical concept. It may change at any time due to owner or other intervention, more accurate determination, etc.. It has zero connection otherwise with any OS_BoundaryLine and both may alter their line independent to each other.
• A Wood is a… actually, I believe that you may have got the point by now.

The issue is that the person that welded the boundary & some other feature of the map together did not seem to consider the need nor aspect of future maintenance. By their nature, different BoundaryLines often share the identical way. It therefore makes perfect sense for them to share their lines. By contrast, it makes zero sense for any BoundaryLine to share it’s path with any other map feature, and if implemented in that way doubles or triples the time & workload in map maintenance.

</rant>

3 August: Bassetlaw may be finished. Finally.

There is an exceptionally useful map of all Notts parishes, and I used that to check off all parishes. The following were found to be missing & added:-

• Norton CP
• Gamston CP
• Darlton CP
• Headon cum Upton CP
• South Wheatley CP
• Fledborough CP
  (earlier additions):
• Nottingham (unparished)
• Worksop (unparished)
• East Retford (unparished)
• West Bridgford (unparished)
• Kirkby-in-Ashfield (unparished)
• Sutton-In-Ashfield (unparished)
• Mansfield and Ansfield Woodhouse (unparished)
• Hucknall (unparished)
• Arnold and Carlton (unparished)