Meet the man who has brought Yorkshire to life within a fantasy-style map.
Spotting a gap in the market, Chris Birde, 37, left his job as a retail manager to pursue his dream job as a full-time cartologist in 2020. He draws fictional maps of real life places such as Yorkshire, highlighting key historical locations.
The sudden career change has proven to be a success as Chris has even opened an Etsy shop, which shows his most recent creation – a Lord of the Rings-inspired map of South Yorkshire.
Chris said: “This map of South Yorkshire is actually the culmination of five years of self-taught fantasy cartography. The idea of creating a map came when I was in the process of writing a fantasy novel and needed a map to go at the beginning of the book.
“Rather than get someone to draw it for me, I gave it a go myself and was happy with the results; so happy in fact, that I made a similar fantasy map of my home region – Teesside – for a bit of fun.
“I posted it online and got so much positive feedback that I realised I was onto something. At the time I scoured the internet and saw that no one else was really doing these kinds of maps for UK counties.”
It was then when Chris decided that he was going to map every county in the UK in this particular fantasy style but also wanted to highlight some of the ‘hidden history’ in each area – the kind of things that you wouldn’t find through a simple Google search.
Chris made the map digitally using Photoshop, and has taken around three weeks in total which a third of that time has been spent researching locations/stories that have been suggested to him.
South Yorkshire map completed
He adds: “It makes the maps also have a purpose, rather than just being something pretty to look at. I am a huge Tolkien fan, though, unlike most, I actually prefer the films over the books these days. I think he really nailed that ‘classic’ fantasy look with his maps, which is something I wanted to take inspiration from. The map creation process is pretty unique also, with a lot of the locations being crowdsourced.
“I think it’s something really important which sets the map apart. I’m not a local, so I would have no idea where to even start when it comes to looking for ancient ruins, barrows, battle sites and anything else a bit out of the ordinary.
“So, I posted in around 500 groups on Facebook and some on Reddit asking for feedback and suggestions in order to get some places on the map that only people who live in the area would really know about things like the Dead Man’s Cave in Woodsetts or the Wentworth Woodhouse follies, as well as hundreds of miles of Roman Roads, castles and moated sites.
“The feedback was phenomenal. There has been in in excess of 1000 comments to get through over two weeks, most filled with brilliant ideas. I’m pleased to say I was able to get around 90% of those suggestions in; the remaining 10% just weren’t possible at this scale. Perhaps in future I’ll map the larger towns and cities individually in order to get more detail in – who knows?
“My favourite suggestions are probably related to bits of local mythology rather than physical landmarks a few example include Bunting Nook Boggard and the Barghests west of Sheffield – these terrifying dog-like creatures used to prowl the roads looking for unsuspecting victims back in the day.” If you would like to see Chris’ map, click here.
Map creator Chris Birde
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