This opens up a can of worms!
It depends whether you define `map' as a continuous piece of paper, or
as a series map published in sections and joined together. On this
basis most national topographic maps at a scale of 1:50,000 or larger
of a country the size of Britain would easily outdo the Worcester map.
This has been done occasionally as a gimmick: two which I can call to
mind are:
1991: complete OS 1:50,000 of GB laid out in an aircraft hanger by
?sea scouts at Yeovil (OS bicentenary gimmick). Probably about 30 x
120 feet.
1851: complete published-so-far OS 1-inch Old Series of England (up to
Preston-Hull line) mounted as a single sheet displayed at Great
Exhibition.
The Great Exhibition also included several composite 6-inch county
maps, including Lancashire. (See my article in Map Collector 50,
Spring 1990.)
The Worcester map was presumably at 1:528, one of a considerable
number prepared from 1851 onwards for public health work, some by the
OS, and including one for Birmingham, numbered as a set of 275 sheets,
though only 181 seem to have been prepared (Birmingham Central
Library, Archives Dept, MS 366/1-181). Fitted together these would
easily outdo the Worcester map. Fortunately for posterity's storage
arrangements, most of these 1:528s, including the Birmingham one, were
kept as individual sheets; composite maps such as Worcester are very
much the exception. I suspect that a duplicate copy would have been
made, as more user-friendly, possibly on tracing-paper (not
survival-friendly...)
One respondent mentioned a 25ft-square parish map of Westbury on
Severn. It was nearly invariable practice in the mid 19th century for
parish and township maps at 1:2376 and smaller to be assembled
together as a single map (there are about 10,000 such tithe maps in
the Public Record Office, for a start), rather than component sheets,
and this is probably why the OS 1:2500 was initially published by
parishes, albeit in county sheet lines!
The idea of the single-sheet map explains some of the ridicule poured
on the OS 6-inch mapping during the Battle of the Scales in the early
1850s: it was calculated that a 1-inch map of Scotland would cover 21
x 36 feet, a 6-inch 126 x 216 feet. This seems rather a silly way of
looking at the scale question today, but it temporarily `did for' the
6-inch.
Richard Oliver
-------------------
Richard Oliver, B.A., D.Phil., F.B.Cart.S.,
School of Geography & Archaeology
University of Exeter
Exeter, EX4 4RJ
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