We’ll certainly have no excuses if our knowledge of home isn’t up to scratch any more. We recently made a bulk purchase of about 20 large vintage school wall maps. Produced by G W Bacon in the 1950s, many feature the British Isles – and cover every aspect of its geography – towns, roads, railways, population density, industries, geology, rivers, relief, contours, isotherms, isobars and rainfall.

It’s been very enjoyable sorting through them. They’re 60 years old – so slightly out-of-date in some respects, but no less interesting. It’s often the differences between ‘then & now’ found on these old maps & globes that are fascinating. The ‘traditional industry’ map illustrates this perfectly. If you click on each image you can view them in greater detail.

In addition to their educational value, these vintage maps are also very decorative in terms of graphic design and colour. They look great in a library, study or office space. We’ve hung a row of them along a long hallway. We’re going to keep a few and sell a few of this particular batch. Some have gone into our antiques centre space and we’ve also listed 3 or 4 on eBay this week.