1947 LONDON UNERGROUND DIAGRAM OF LINES Original Vintage folding Map designed by Harry Beck 

Designed by Harry Charles (HC) Beck. Printed by McCorquodale & Co Ltd for London Transport. 22.7cm x 14.7cm. Card bi-fold map. Condition is generally good. There is a light tone spot to the centre left.

This is the first post-WWII design by Beck which sees the return of the London Underground roundel on the cover and an end of the pointless practise of duplicating stations names, something Beck disliked greatly. Instead, station names are printed once in black and have been so ever since. The cover roundel is highly unusual as all the letters in the word ‘Underground’ are the same size as they are today. All other roundels after this map show a larger U and D and this continued until 1968.

This is the last design not to have a separate Circle line, introduced in 1948. The decorative border on the cover is credited to Captain 'Shep' Shepherd who also designed a striking border for the poster formats. During the war, the planned extensions of the Central and Northern lines were put on hold and did not appear on the map after 1941. However, with a new post-war optimism the planned extensions returned, shown as dotted lines.