The president of the British Cartographic Society has hit out at internet mapping for replacing traditional landmarks such as churches and cathedrals, ancient forests, battle sites and stately homes with simplified street plans and blank spaces.

Speaking at the Institute of British Geographers conference in London, Mary Spence said online maps like Google and Multimap were good for driving but were responsible for "corporate blankwash" and "wiping out history" by leaving out the symbols that help map readers get a sense of the landscape.

"Corporate cartographers are demolishing thousands of years of history - not to mention Britain's remarkable geography - at a stroke by not including them on maps which millions of us now use every day," she was quoted by the BBC as saying.

"We're in real danger of losing what makes maps so unique, giving us a feel for a place even if we've never been there."

Worcester Cathedral and Tewkesbury Abbey are just two of the many Christian landmarks that are missed from Google Maps.

"But it's not just Google - it's Nokia, Microsoft, maps on satellite navigation tools. It's diluting the quality of the graphic image that we call a map," she said.

Ed Parsons, geospatial technologist at Google, responded to Ms Spence's comments, saying that the traditional symbols were still available on Google's maps but had to be searched for.

"These traditional landmarks are still on the map but people need to search for them. Interactive maps will display precisely the information people want, when they want it," he was quoted by the BBC as saying.

"You couldn't possibly have everything already pinpointed."