Legible London Walking Maps

The Legible London project has been producing clear, attractive maps of parts of London, to help people navigate unfamiliar streets by foot, for a few years now. The maps appear on numerous way-marking plinths around the capital, helping people to get from A to B effectively. During the Olympic Games in 2012, paper Legible London maps were made available at key stations, to encourage people to walk rather than overload the tube/train network, but generally, the maps are not available online. Recently, however, the project has created maps for several of London’s signed long-distance walks, and these are available for download.

As an example I’ve picked Section 7 of the Jubilee Greenway, one of London’s long-distance paths that was put together for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, also celebrated in 2012. This particular path spends quite a lot of time on the Greenway (aka the Northern Outflow Sewer!) in east London, but also includes some more classically touristy sections. Section 7 is a nice balance between the industrial and touristy parts of London, going through the industrial/changing Deptford waterfront and residential Rotherhithe but also passing the Cutty Sark of Maritime Greenwich and Tower Bridge. Direct link to the PDF.

The maps use a clear and consistent colour theme, with a relatively small number of colours resulting in attractive cartography. Only major buildings and landmarks are shown, in yellow, with a selection shown in 3D on some of the inset maps. The route is shown clearly, with a red line, and with links to stations, and diversions, as red dashes.

You can download section maps for most of London’s long-distance paths, on a new part of the TfL website.

Hat-tip to Diamond Geezer for spotting the new maps.