Carto Cymru – The Wales Map Symposium 2021: Surveying the Streets

12–14 May Carto Cymru – The Wales Map Symposium 2021: Surveying the Streets held in partnership with the National Library of Wales and the Historic Towns Trust. This year’s free online symposium will focus on how towns and cities have been mapped through time and how this can help us understand the history and processes of urban growth. At 5pm on 12 May, David Thomas, Head of Public Services at the Royal Commission will be talking on: Townscapes: A View from Above. From the Roman towns of Carmarthen and Cardiff, through to the closely planned post-war development of places such as Cwmbran, the competing needs of trade, defence, housing, transport and industry within geographic constraints have created a unique morphology for each settlement in Wales. The paper will investigate this morphology using the extensive aerial photography and mapping collections of the National Monuments Record of Wales, drawing on case studies that illustrate the contrasting geographical and historical agents of change across the country.

Over a three-day period from 12–14 May talks will include Mapping our Townscapes: the British Historic Towns Atlases – Past, Present & Future by Professor Keith Lilley, Queen’s University Belfast (1pm, 12 May); Mapping the Scottish Burgh: a Cautionary Tale by John Moore, University of Glasgow Library (1pm, 13 May); Surveying the Streets: Early Plans of Welsh Towns before 1800 by Huw Thomas, National Library of Wales (5pm, 13 May); From Speed to the OS: Surveying the Streets through the Irish Historic Towns Atlas by Sarah Gearty, Royal Irish Academy, Dublin (1pm, 14 May); and Literary Topographies of the Medieval British Town by Professor Helen Fulton, Bristol University (5pm, 14 May). There will also be several workshops held at 10.30am on 13 May, including Mapping Mold: a Methodology for the Digitisation and Polygonization of Ordnance Survey Town Plans c.1870 by Jon Dollery, Royal Commission Mapping Officer. For further details and booking please visit: https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/llgcnlw/t-odqyol