A CARTOGRAPHER has published a map showing how Malton would have looked more than 150 years ago.

Peter Adams runs a company called Heritage Cartography, based in Newcastle, which has created a map of Malton in 1850.

The map has been hand-drawn from the first large scale surveys of the area by the Ordanance Survey, and it reveals some interesting sociological details about Malton.

Mr Adams said: “This map was the first one that Ordanance Survey ever created of Malton.

“It shows that in 1850 Malton was a prosperous and flourishing town, partly because it had been newly-connected to the railway.

“Modern industry is clearly flourishing, as there are two large brick yards, two limestone quarries and kilns and a steam corn mill on the Beverley Road. The Malton Spa and the formal gardens is on one side of the town, and the workhouse is on the other, which is an interesting example of this period of Victorian history.”

Mr Adams, 68, who grew up in Scarborough, and whose parents live in Kirkbymoorside, left his job at Ordnance Survey 12 years ago, to set up in business producing hand-drawn reproductions of Victorian maps of Yorkshire towns.

He said: “Ordnance made a lot of maps of Yorkshire towns from the 1840s onwards, and I have been working my way through the bigger towns, and now the smaller towns, drawing them by hand.

“Although these days we have maps on the internet, in 1840 these maps were the only way of seeing how the local geography fitted together. My reproductions are craft items really, they are often given as presents, and I get a lot of enquiries from people who want to use them for genealogy research.”

The maps are available from local bookshops or Malton Tourist Information Centre, at www.victoriantownmaps.co.uk