In 2005 the British Mountaineering Council (BMC) got together with Harvey Maps to produce a map of the Lake District. The most popular mapping used by walkers is the Ordenance survey (OS) 1:25000 but if you are walking in the central lakes you may need 4 different maps to cover the area of a long walk. The 1:40000 scale and centering the map on the middle of the lakes meant that you could do most walking in the lakes with a single map.

There are now at least 15 'British mountain maps' in the series of popular walking areas in the British Isles.

These maps have some great features over OS maps

They are printed on waterproof paper so they are light and will fold up and fit in a small pocket (no map case required).

They are designed for walkers and climbers so they have less info that you don't need on them.

They have shading at different heights to help show the shape of the land.

Their contours are at 15 m intervals (rather than 10m) I don't actually like this as it makes the maths harder but it makes the hills clearer. They also throw in broken contour lines to show the shape of the land even where the hill top doesn't make the next 15m.

They show rock climbing venues.

They print lots of useful infomation on the back

They cover walking areas in a sensible way rather than requiring lots of maps

They show field boundries.

You can buy BMC maps from here.