How to give a grid reference?

Part 2 - How to give a grid reference

Step 1 - Read letters identifying the 100 000 metre square in which your position lies (see image above), in this case the letter is P. Note that sometimes a map will intersect numerous different letters, for example OS Map No. 56 intersects 4 letters so care is needed to ensure you have the correct one

Step 2 - I am sure you remember from Geography class the terms Eastings and Northings. First quote Eastings, the vertical grid line to left of point, In this case the number is 01

Step 3 - Next comes the estimate work, you need to imagine that the square that our destination is located within is split into smaller squares. So imagine 10 lines vertically across the square and 10 lines horizontally across the square - essentially what you are doing is narrowing your grid from 100 000 metre square to 100 metre square

Step 4 - From the map it is safe to estimate that there is 1 vertical line on the left (Easting) of our target

Step 5 - Next step involves repeating Step 3 & 4 but this time for our horizontal (Northing) reference, Locate first horizontal grid line below the point

Step 6 - Our Northing Coordinate therefore is 32

Step 7 - Next step is to count the number of horizontal (Northing) lines below the target as we did earlier with our Easting in Steps 3 & 4. In this case I estimate there to be 7 horizontal lines below our target

Step 8 - All that remains is to check that all the information is correct and that our Grid Reference of P 011 327 is in fact the position we need to go to