Teatime Talks
Our monthly short talks on a wide range of topics – projects, case studies, points of interest from historic mapping and archives to the latest ideas on data visualisation. These are half-hour virtual webinars, hosted on the third Thursday of each month at 5pm.
Teatime Talks – St Helens, City of London – Shakespeare to Skyscraper
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Thursday, January 7, 2021
17:00-17:30
Virtual, registration via Eventbrite
Seppe Cassettari, President, British Cartographic Society
Summary
In support of a book on the life of Shakespeare during the time he lived within the parish of St Helens in the City of London (around the last 5 years of the 16th century), we have created a time sequenced set of maps for the parish from the original church and nunnery through to the modern day.
There are many references to local features in works produced by Shakespeare around this time, including the 'two-bucket well' and the nunnery itself. But it has always been an area of continual change while at the same time retaining links to the past through the church and the Worshipful Company of Leathersellers.
We'll have a brief tour using the maps to show what still exists from Shakespeare's time to the latest landmark buildings such as 100 Bishopsgate (181 metres and 37 storeys tall) and the new 22 Bishopsgate described as a 'vertical village in the heart of London'.
Teatime Talks – The Waterloo campaign: the mapping perspective
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Thursday, January 21, 2021
17:00-17:30
Virtual, registration via Eventbrite
John Peaty, Convener of the Historical Military Mapping Group, British Cartographic Society
Summary
This talk will explore the contemporary maps available to Wellington, his allies and opponents during the campaign. In particular, it will examine their accuracy and how they either helped or hindered the commanders at the time. It will discuss the famous and controversial Waterloo Map, a prized possession of the Royal Engineers. It will also discuss three examples where it is possible that either inadequate maps and/or inadequate map reading had an impact on the course and result of the campaign.
Teatime Talks – Stansted Airport – Modernising their mapping but keeping it simple at the same time!
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Thursday, February 18, 2021
17:00-17:30
Virtual, registration via Eventbrite
Philip Dellar, Technical Director, Geomni UK
Summary
Stansted airport has over many years increased its capacity and ability to handle larger and larger volumes of aircraft and people traffic. Under its new owners, Manchester Airports Group, they have been looking to modernise not only their operational procedures, but also their behind-the-scenes airside operations. Being approached by the airside operations team, with two large paper maps in hand, and asking if it was possible to create new current versions the challenge was set. Dragging them into the world of GIS and creating a spatial database that they could maintain themselves and use across many of their operational groups was the plan, but in the end they just wanted an update of the same paper maps. It seems their resistance to change was very high and this 20-minute presentation aims to show some of the advances there were made in creating the database and ultimately the end result – the new map!