[Talk-GB] The curious case of USRN 20602512

[Michael Collinson]

On 2020-07-11 07:47, Steve Doerr wrote:

> On 10/07/2020 11:27, Mark Goodge wrote:
>> So, it seems that Fairfield [Road] isn't known to either OS or 
>> Google. It is shown (in abbreviated form) on streetmap.co.uk, but at 
>> that zoom level, in London, that's based on the Bartholomew A-Z maps 
>> rather than OS.
>
> For what it's worth, I also found it in a street atlas published by 
> Geographia. I don't know if that's the same company as A-Z. I also 
> don't know the date of the street atlas and neither do I know how old 
> a street atlas (non-OS) would have to be in order to be able to copy a 
> name from it.
>
It is just possible (sight unseen) that it is an Easter Egg. When I 
headed the License Working Group we had an ironic case in Israel where a 
contributor had asked local residents what an unsigned back street was 
called and they told him they knew it as "Pearl Street", which he 
promptly mapped. A local atlas company then got angry that we were 
"copying their data" citing the their made-up Pearl Street as proof. 
Fiction can become fact.

Mike