Madly annotated map of London at the British Library

'The Island' is a hand-drawn, madly annotated map of London by Stephen Walter, in the British Library's Magnificent Maps collection. It might not get you effortlessly from Madame Tussauds to Selfridges, but you can still zoom in and move around the boroughs.

Below, a detail from Stephen Walter's 'The Island'. The spot marked 'The Blairs', BTW (above 'Battle Bridge'), is Richmond Crescent, the leafy road where Mr & Mrs ex-PM used to live before moving to decidedly less charming 10 Downing Street (now, I hear, they've moved to Kensington, so the map is slightly out of date, I'm afraid). Not far from 'The Albion', in fact - a lovely pub with exuberant hanging baskets and portly armchairs.

Spotted on Boing Boing