You can’t trust a map. Not even the A-Z.

A BBC TV programme several years ago first revealed to many people the news that the A-Z contains deliberate mistakes. These ‘trap streets‘ are inserted as a way to protect copyright – if the map is reproduced or copied without permission, the map manufacturers will immediately be able to spot them (see more here).

(A comment at Reddit clarifies this: the map itself cannot have a copyright as it is a “representation of fact… The trap streets and deliberate mistakes change the work from being purely factual into a creative expression and thus able to be protected by copyright.”)

Nobody is quite sure exactly how many mistakes each A-Z contains or where or how long they last for, but the BBC said there were about 100 and named one, Bartlett Place, a real street which was actually called Broadway Walk and renamed thus in future maps.

Another deliberate mistake can be seen on the photo at the top of this page. Can you spot what it is?

See the ‘ski slope’ in the park just next to the city farm? That’s one of the A-Z’s little phantoms. It comes from an old copy of the A-Z (and many thanks to reader Andrew Lyn) for sending the photograph, as the ‘ski slope’ hasn’t been used for about a decade.

If anybody is aware of any other other deliberate mistakes in recent A-Zs, please let us all know.