Visiting the Great Polish Map of Scotland

The Great Polish Map of Scotland is located on the grounds of the Barony Castle Hotel. Found near the borders town of Eddleston, just north of Peebles, or a 50 minute drive from Edinburgh. We visited it on our way north from England, which didn’t take use too much out of our way. It is free to visit so a must visit for all map enthusiasts in Scotland or Northern England.

Built between 1974 and 1979 to a scale of 1:10000 it is truly impressive to behold (50 m x 40 m on the ground). It is the largest known physical representation of a country and the largest outdoor relief map in the world (signpost at the map). Envisioned by Jan Tomasik, a Polish sergeant. He had been station in Galashiels during WW2, and added the Hotel Black Barony to his holdings in 1968, providing the map a location. The map itself was built in stages over a number of years, with Polish exchange students providing some of the manpower required.

The map is now maintained by Mapa Scotland. A charity who are now working on restoring the map. Parts of it are currently in poor condition, but overall it is an impressive site.

Also the grounds of the hotel in general are really beautiful, with a small glen running through the site, if visiting the Scottish Borders it would make a great place to stay: Barony Castle Hotel.

When arriving at the hotel there is a path just to the left of the castle:

Barony Castle Hotel

The path continues on the bridge over the glen:

Bridge to the map.

Finally the map, the white stick is the location of Ben Nevis. Looking from the east, so Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire in the forefront:

The Great Polish Map of Scotland

View from the west, with the Western Isles in the forefront:

The Great Polish Map of Scotland

View from the south with the Scottish Borders and Dumfires and Galloway in the forefront:

The Great Polish Map of Scotland

Closeup of the details, the erosion on the edges is evident:

The Great Polish Map of Scotland

YouTube:


Video 1 and Video 2.

Bing:

Bing Maps Bird’s eye view has a good image of the map.

Google:
Location on Google Maps.

For more information please visit:
Mapa Scotland
The Great Polish Map of Scotland on Wikipedia
BBC News

UK Rail Network Visualized by Operator

Update: see the weekly updated version at: UK Rail Network Map

The United Kingdom’s railway network is split up into regional franchises, these franchises are run by private companies who bid on the work. So for example ScotRail, which runs the trains in Scotland is owned by the FIrst Group, who also run a number of other regional franchises. This can however change, when the contracts are up for bid.

Interestingly there is also a governmental holding company (Directly Operated Railways), which can take over a franchise if necessary, they currently run East Coast Trains.

For this visualization I have grouped Serco-Abellio and Abellio as Serco/Abellio.

EDIT: Like mentioned in the Scotland to the Rest of the UK, lines are drawn between stations on a route. So a direct route from Glasgow to London would be a direct line between the two terminus stations.

UK Railway Network by Operator

Inspired by Scotland’s connections to the rest of the UK.

Data:

Train lines: GTFS Data Exchange

Country outline: Natural Earth