Maps

Okay, I’ve got a confession to make – I quite like maps. You can stop laughing now. I’m amazed by the amount of detail a good cartographer (that’s the technical term for someone who makes maps, don’t ya know) can get into a few lines.

“Yes Michael, very good, but how does this relate to Edge Hill?” Well, it could be said that Edge Hill has a problem explaining where it is. Its name doesn’t relate to its location (and hasn’t done for nearly 80 years); telling people Edge Hill is in Ormskirk usually doesn’t help much! So over the years, prospectuses have used maps to show where we are and how to get here, and I’m going to show you some of them over the next few months!

The above map is slightly confusingly at an angle and there have been substantial changes around Ormskirk. Missing is Park Road which bypasses the clocktower connecting Aughton Street and Church Street. The bus station moved across the road and closer to the train station (the old bus station is now Kwik Fit). Perhaps the most notable omission is the M58 – the road is marked as Skelmersdale by pass dating it in the 1970s.

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8 responses to ““Edge Hill… isn’t that in Birmingham?””

  1. I wish I had a fiver for every time I’ve fielded that “where is Edge Hill?” question at a conference. I’d probably have, ooh, about £25 by now…
    It is odd that we are named after a geographical area but not located within it. I can’t, offhand, think of any other institution with that quality. Another example of Edge Hill’s uniqueness!

  2. Lancaster might be pushing the definition of University of Cumbria a little but many universities have campuses is different locations.

  3. I think if I’d had £5 for every time I was asked ‘Where’s that?’ when I was telling my friends and family where I was coming for uni, I would have enough money to pay my fees for 3 years!

  4. Mike
    Yes, obviously universities have campuses in various locations. What I was getting at was that we are named after a place, but our main location isn’t that place. Cumbria would undoubtedly have called themselves Lancaster if that name hadn’t been taken, and they have (or perhaps that’s now ‘had’) major campuses in Cumbria.

  5. Best one for me was doing a publicity / recruitment fair at Bangor University (where’s that? Caernarvonshire, Co. Down or the race course just outside Chester) and was asked in one of the thickest N Wales accents I’ve ever heard, and that’s after living for four years in Bethesda:
    ‘Why on earth should an institute of Higher Education possibly want to name itself after a Civil War Battlefield?

    There’s education for you now.

  6. I am from Birmingham and a lot of people had never heard of Edge hill, I was also the first person ever in my school/6th form to come to Edge Hill to study my degree in teaching!
    I put Edge Hill on the map for many Brummies 🙂

  7. You think it’s hard trying to explain Edge Hill up here? Try living down south! I’m pretty sure a lot of my realatives think I go to ” Edge-Hill-its-about-half-an-hour-above-Liverpool-no-you-haven’t-heard-of-it University”