He adores maps... and now his photo will feature on one

David, who works in the University of Portsmouth library, had his stunning photo of Wastwater in the Lake District picked as one of the images people can choose for their cover when buying the new Three Peaks Challenge map.

David said: ‘As a map enthusiast I can hardly tell you how excited I am to have my image on an OS map cover.’

Wastwater, which is England’s deepest lake, is one of David’s favourite spots and is an area he has visited many times over the past 40 years.

He has also climbed and photographed most of the surrounding fells.

A copy of the map will find its way into the university’s map library, which contains thousands of Ordnance Survey maps, including one of the most comprehensive collections of historic OS maps of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight.

The library also contains a curiosities, including a 1:500,000 tactical pilotage chart of the South Atlantic that depicts over 100,000 square miles of sea.

One of David’s favourite maps is a former top secret map of Portsmouth, one of 91 known maps of British and Irish towns produced by the Soviets during the Cold War. In it, industrial buildings are shown in black with military sites in green.

David said: ‘Only three buildings are coloured in violet to indicate their involvement in governmental or administrative activity. One is the former HM Prison Kingston, another is a warehouse adjacent to the Camber Dock, while the third is the University Library.’

Many of the 15,000 maps in the library collection have been donated.

David said: ‘In the past we have received about 500 maps a year from the Defence Geographic Centre.’

In 2009 the Ordnance Survey gave us its collection of over 3,000 County Series maps of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, including a complete collection of superbly detailed large scale plans of Portsmouth from the 1860s.

‘The oldest map we hold, a manuscript map of the Southwick Estate from about 1810, was also a donation.’

The map collection belonged first to the Department of Geography, then the former Portland Learning Resources Centre. It has been housed in the library since 2007.

David is a member of the Map Curators’ Group, a specialist interest group of the British Cartographic Society, the Society of Cartographers and The Charles Close Society for the Study of Ordnance Survey Maps. He has also been a member of the Horndean Amateur Theatrical Society for 30 years and plays percussion for the Portsmouth Light Orchestra.