A man who quit his job “stacking shelves” to become a cartographer, has designed a Lord of the Rings-themed map of Oldham.

The ‘Middle Earth’ styled map of Greater Manchester was curated by 36-year-old Chris Birse, who for two years was balancing his job managing a team at Aldi while creating the illustrations.

The Darlington man decided two years ago that he would leave his secure post to fully submerge himself in his passion, and in doing so discovered the "cool" and "vibrant" Oldham.

He said: "I really wanted to do the Greater Manchester area - it's so different to every other area in the UK.

"When I make this I start by joining Facebook groups of the the towns and villages to ask people what they think should be in the map - so, everything that's on there is what people have asked for.

"The whole map took just short of a month to do in the end, and the scale of it means that I can't get some of the really old pubs and bits like that in there."

Chris told The Oldham Times that he "kind of fell into it" when designing the front cover for a novel he was writing four-years-ago - which he is still yet to complete due to how time consuming his new full-time job is.

He continued: "I looked at hiring someone to do it but it all cost so much money so I thought instead of paying someone to do it I may as well give it a go myself.

"I got such a good response that I've ended up leaving my job - I used to work in Aldi as a manager but I quit when this started to take off two years ago.

The Oldham Times: Map of Oldham depicts two Saddleworth giantsMap of Oldham depicts two Saddleworth giants (Image: Chris Birse)

"I was struggling to do a full-time job and this so I felt like it was time to fully jump into it, because this just took over so much."

Among the landmarks illustrated on the map is the Tandle Hill monument, in the Tandle Hill Country Park, the Millennium Cross, in Oldham Edge, and Alphin Pike and Alderman’s Hill - depicted as two giants called Alphin and Alder.

Chris said that according to folklore, the Saddleworth giants were friends until they both fell in love with a water nymph.

He added: "I've never been to Oldham, I'm not a local, from what I've seen it looks cool and there's an industrial heritage there and there's a lot of mining there which I've depicted in the map.

"I would like to visit Oldham after what I've learned about the area, it looks very vibrant, once I've mapped everywhere I'm going to go on a tour of Britain."