British Road Map Puzzle Book

Most people who like travelling like maps too, and this collection of maps, puzzles, and stories about Britain’s roads is sure to appeal.

It’s a simple but clever idea. Take a map showing one of Britain’s well-known roads, or part of it, like Snake Pass or The Great North Road, and set a series of puzzles based round what’s on the map. Intersperse these with entertaining features about driving, like what were Britain’s earliest roads or the history of the roundabout (invented in New York in 1905, by the way: I never knew that). The result is a book that will be a great companion for families on car journeys.

You don’t have to be on a road trip to enjoy it, though. I read it sitting in an armchair, engrossed in the stories of motoring history, and enjoying looking at the maps, chosen from different eras in the AA’s archives.

Motoring History

The book begins with a brief history of Britain’s roads, starting in about 50AD when the first main Roman road, The Fosse Way, was built to link Exeter and Lincoln. That was some feat of road-building, about 250 miles (400 kms).

Other dates that caught my eye included 1610, which was the first recorded stagecoach route, from Edinburgh to Leith (a rather shorter journey than Exeter to Lincoln). Stagecoaches got their name because they travelled routes in stages. In 1904 the first number plates were introduced, and in 1922 British roads were numbered for the first time.

For Trivia Fans

From the M1 to the M10, which British motorway doesn’t exist?*

Describing the Route

Each map – and there are forty in all – opens with a description of the route, and about its history and its significance. Some of the descriptions by author Helen Brocklehurst make you want to jump into the car and drive the route immediately.

The Author

How does the author know so much about maps? Well, she used to be Head of AA Publishing, where she was responsible for the production of millions of AA maps and atlases, and for the AA’s traffic and route-planning websites. She says she is, of necessity, a devoted map reader as she has no sense of direction!

The Puzzles

Each map comes with a series of puzzles that relate in some way to the map. The first map, for example, is for part of Ermine Street, the Roman road that went from London to York, via Lincoln. It became known as the Old North Road, the A1, and then the Great North Road. The section shown is one I’m very familiar with, as it’s the stretch around Huntingdon and Godmanchester, not far from where I live in Cambridgeshire.

Not that this helps me answer the questions any more easily. Which three historic counties are shown on the map? Ermine Street began at Bishopsgate, but can you name any other gates in walled Londinium?

There are ten puzzles per map, and two types of question are common to all of the maps. There’s always an anagram of a place name on the map, and for me the one on Ermine Street did prove easy: CHARTED GNOMES. There’s also always a crossword-type of puzzle. For Ermine Street it’s: ‘Betting when about fifty, indeed!’**

Record Roads

Not all of the maps are based on routes that have, or had, names. Some have been chosen for what they are, including the steepest road, the highest road, the bendiest road, the longest stretch of straight road, and the strangest bypass. This is a strange story indeed, starting with a road that was the shortest stretch of motorway in Britain when it was built, at 2,717 ft (828 m).

Well Worth Buying

This is a book well worth buying, for anyone interested in cars, history, maps, travel, puzzles, and trivia. It’s also the perfect present for anyone interested in any of those topics. It’s 240 pages of pleasure, and published at £14.99 in the UK by Sphere. It’s available worldwide on Amazon and other online book stores, and would make a good companion for another recent motoring book, The Car Miscellany.

* The M7. There’s an M7 in Ireland, but not in the UK. You’ll have to buy the book to find out why.

** Gamlingay.