One of our favourite vintage maps from our collections is this beautiful hand drawn map c1938 - the first A-Z street map.
Geographers' Map Company was founded in 1936 by Phyllis Pearsall MBE (1906-1996) who, encouraged by her father Alexander Gross, took on the ambitious task of publishing up-to-date street mapping of London.
Mrs. Pearsall had the street map originals hand drawn on tracing paper using pen and ink whilst she compiled much of the information necessary to update the maps. This huge task involved her visiting the thirty one Borough Surveyors' departments concerned to obtain as much of their co-operation as possible. She also trudged the streets of London from dawn to dusk hand plotting the alignments of new streets and compiling ancillary information including house numbers along principal thoroughfares. Not least amongst her many tasks was that of the laborious job of card indexing the street names alphabetically in preparation for typesetting and this inspired the origin of the A to Z logo.
I wonder when Phyllis was undertaking this painstaking task did she ever imagine what her work would lead to... with modern day versions of her street maps on little machines in our cars and on hand held mobile telephones, guiding us throughout the UK..... and of course she would never have dreamt that over 70 years later, the style conscious would be decorating their homes and offices with her maps as wallpapers!
The A-Z remains one of the most ingenious examples of early 20th century information design. We have the first London street map available as a set sized wall mural, a large premium canvas print and also as a stunning piece of acrylic wall art. The scale clearly shows the old bus, trolleybus and tram routes, and how the streets of London were just before the Second World War.
A-Z Vintage Street Map c1938 printed onto Pre-Pasted Wallpaper
364cms wide x 250cms high (142" wide x 98" high)
Price: £332.50 (ex Vat) worldwide delivery available
Quote "WallStreet" at checkout
Acrylic Wall Art featuring A-Z Vintage Street Map c1938
91cms wide x 61cms high (36" wide x 24" high)
Price: £230.00 (ex Vat) worldwide delivery available
Quote "CheapStreet" at Checkout
Premium Stretched Canvas Print featuring A-Z Vintage Street Map c1938
91cms wide x 61cms high (36" wide x 24" high)
Price: £150 (ex Vat) worldwide delivery available
Quote "CheaperStreet" at Checkout