Old maps of Essex

As with the rest of the UK, railway mania swept through Essex in the 1840s and beyond, with new railway lines being added right up until 1913.

Map makers were keen to add these to their maps, so keen that they often added proposed routes before they were finalised or indeed possibly ever built. This means that sometimes you will see lines shown that have smooth flowing lines - suspicious of a proposed line - or lines on maps published well before the lines opened. Sometimes these lines were not in fact built, and of course some lines having opened then closed, and these can also take a time before publishers deleted them from the maps - even the OS was a bit slow at this.

The upshot of all this is that the presence (or absence) of a line on a map is not necessarily a good guide to the date of the map. The classic examples of these are the many Moules being sold as being "1837", when they show railway lines built in the 1840s and 1850s, and the maps of J&C Walker that have railway lines added in freehand manuscript to the printed maps as new lines opened and old printed stock was used.

Anyway, thanks to the excellent ERO publication Railways in Essex to 1923 and various railway books here is a list of the railway lines in Essex with their authorisation (ie Parliamentary Act passed) and opening dates.

© Peter Walker 2013 - 2018