1951 "FESTIVAL OF BRITAIN - NEWS CHRONICLE - GUIDE TO LONDON"

This eye-catching pictorial map of London covers the area from Kensington Palace to London Tower and from Regent's Park to Battersea Park. The map was created for the Festival of Britain, a national exhibition and fair that was intended to celebrate Britain and its recovery from World War II and help the British people forget the misery of the previous decade.

The densely filled map displays parks, buildings, named streets, local attractions, the underground railway, and the location of the Festival. Cartouches in the corners depict Wembley Stadium, Epping Forest, Hampton Court Palace and Greenwich Hospital. The map is surrounded by a border featuring various ceremonies of the King's Guard. This map was created by Lawrence Stone and published by George Philip & Son for the "News Chronicle."

On verso are several additional maps showing local transit and the Festival exhibition halls, as well as additional tourist information. Little biographical information is known about the map's artist & designer, Lawrence Stone.

His only other notable work would seem to have been a colourful pictorial map design for British Railways, in very similar style & genre to this piece, depicting the counties of Essex, Hertfordshire & Suffolk and published in about 1953. 

Overall size approximately 54cm x 73cm.

Condition is presentable. This was a folding map to fold down to pocket size and has been clearly well used. The front side retains strong colours and some of the fold lines have surface splits and have been re-enforced on verso. There is one small area below 'FESTIVAL" & REGENTS PARK where the corner fold shows a small hole. There has been further strengthening on verso along several of the folds by way of archival tape.

A RARE SURVIVOR.