See also Where’s Geo? Londinium!

As collectors of historical maps, imagine the surprise when my wife and I discovered that the London Map Fair was “on” as we got to London. Site: A very apropos place—the Royal Geographical Society (RGS). This annual fair is one of the largest exhibitions of “antique atlases, maps, sea charts, town plans, globes, topographical views, panoramas & prints” in the world. Over 40 dealers were on hand and, for those who enjoy great cartography, history, and collecting, the site was amazing…and yes, after perusing the various antiquarian purveyors, we found several “must haves,” including an 1861 map of Greenwich shown here from the Philip Sharpe Gallery…and odd but true, Philip is from Greenwich. (More on this geographic “Holy Grail” site soon.)

As cool as the fair was, it was not what brought us to London and the UK. We were there to sightsee and learn about history, geography, nature, culture, etc. Since we were going to be at the RGS for the fair, we decided to investigate the surrounding area for things that fit into our above categories, would keep us close to the RGS, and hopefully near a London Underground “tube station.”

Using ArcGIS Explorer I decided to plan some aspects of the trip. The first thing needed was the location of the London Map Fair/RGS. From the Web site, I got: 1 Kensington Gore, London SW7. With the “Find Address” task, I pinpointed this location and marked it with a fitting symbol. Wanting to locate interesting sites near this and information about them, I chose to load the “Wikipedia Search” task from the AGX Resource Center.

This task in my thinking would harvest the type of content and locations I was seeking. By right clicking on the RGS symbol in the AGX map, I “sent” its location to the Wikipedia Search task. There, I set the distance to 10 miles (lowest present) and 20 results. Worst case, I needed to turn off some sites…not enough hours in a day.

Below is a summation of my work: Several places meeting our criteria within close proximity to the South Kensington Station.

They were all really fun! More to come.