Historical OS Maps of England & Wales Online

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Cheesedisease
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Joined: 29 May 2010, 11:54am

Historical OS Maps of England & Wales Online

Post by Cheesedisease »

National Library of Scotland - New Online Map Resource – OS six-inch England and Wales, 1842-1952 – 37,000 sheets

http://maps.nls.uk/os/6inch-england-and-wales/index.html

Never thought to broadcast the map resources we create at work, but as we just finished making our largest ever resource available online, and with it stepping south of the border, I thought it might be of interest to some here. Maps always seem to get a warm response from fellow cyclists, so if you fancy plotting your cycle routes along historical lines now's you chance!

You can also explore Scotland and a vast number of other maps geographically here too. All free!

http://maps.nls.uk/index.html
http://maps.nls.uk/geo/find
http://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore

And Londoners might enjoy this georeferenced overlay of the unprecedentedly Large Scale OS Town Plans from the 1890s!
Large Scale OS Town Plans of London from the 1890s

Press release below for anyone looking for more info on the OS 6 Inch.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

New map resource – OS six-inch England and Wales, 1842-1952 – 37,000 sheets

We are very pleased to announce the availability of a new website resource - zoomable colour images of the Ordnance Survey's six-inch to the mile (1:10,560) mapping of England and Wales. This is the most detailed Ordnance Survey topographic mapping covering all of England and Wales from the 1840s to the 1950s. It was revised for the whole country twice between 1842-1893 and between 1891-1914, and then updated regularly for urban or rapidly changing areas from 1914 to the 1940s. Our holdings are made up of 37,390 sheets, including 35,124 quarter sheets, and 2,236 full sheets.

The easiest way of finding sheets is through a clickable graphic index using our 'Find by Place' viewer: http://maps.nls.uk/openlayers.cfm?id=39 ... n=-1.88975

This allows searching through a gazetteer of placenames, street names, postcodes and Grid References, as well as by zooming in on an area of interest with smaller-scale locational mapping as a backdrop.

The sheets are also available via county lists: http://maps.nls.uk/os/6inch-england-and ... nties.html

We plan to also make georeferenced mosaics available of the series by the late summer.

OS six-inch England and Wales home page: http://maps.nls.uk/os/6inch-england-and ... index.html

Further information: http://maps.nls.uk/os/6inch-england-and ... info1.html
Last edited by Cheesedisease on 12 Mar 2014, 9:55pm, edited 1 time in total.
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gaz
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Re: Historical OS Maps of England & Wales Online

Post by gaz »

Fascinating find.

I'll have another look when I'm in a more patient mood, the site navigation might take a bit of getting used to.

Thanks for sharing.
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mjr
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Re: Historical OS Maps of England & Wales Online

Post by mjr »

Thanks. I've used it to give local forums more info on the former mine that my house was built on (it was a scam not a productive mine) ;-)
MJR, mostly pedalling 3-speed roadsters. KL+West Norfolk BUG incl social easy rides http://www.klwnbug.co.uk
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Cheesedisease
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Re: Historical OS Maps of England & Wales Online

Post by Cheesedisease »

gaz wrote:Fascinating find.

I'll have another look when I'm in a more patient mood, the site navigation might take a bit of getting used to.

Thanks for sharing.


Any problems with the navigation let me know. I'll endeavour to help. Basically it functions as an index of sheetlines. Use the main map window as you would Google Maps to zoom in. Then just click where you're interested in and thumbnails for all the maps for that series will appear on the left. Clicking any of those opens it up as a zoomable image and you can view the sheet in great detail.

Always useful to get feedback on that sort of thing too, any problems, I can pass it on at work. We're a very small team though, so improving it isn't always within our immediate abilities!
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Mick F
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Re: Historical OS Maps of England & Wales Online

Post by Mick F »

Excellent.
Thank you.

I love maps! :D
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mjr
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Re: Historical OS Maps of England & Wales Online

Post by mjr »

It would be much nicer if it used open street maps rather than Google, actually.
MJR, mostly pedalling 3-speed roadsters. KL+West Norfolk BUG incl social easy rides http://www.klwnbug.co.uk
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Cheesedisease
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Joined: 29 May 2010, 11:54am

Re: Historical OS Maps of England & Wales Online

Post by Cheesedisease »

mjr wrote:It would be much nicer if it used open street maps rather than Google, actually.


It does and more!

You can change the background mapping via the drop-down menu at the top right of the mapping window. You can get rid of the Google monopoly!
This is particularly useful for comparing mapping in our georeferenced maps viewer that overlays historic maps on modern ones - http://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore

And I'd agree with you, OSM is the best. The speed it gets updated is phenomenal, especially here in Edinburgh with our incessant tram works!
Richard Fairhurst
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Re: Historical OS Maps of England & Wales Online

Post by Richard Fairhurst »

And as an OSMer, I (and we) love the fact you've given us access to these maps to trace from - thanks!
cycle.travel - maps, journey-planner, route guides and city guides
deckertim
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Joined: 10 Oct 2009, 12:17am

Re: Historical OS Maps of England & Wales Online

Post by deckertim »

Awesome. I may have a look at putting some onto my etrex30 as a custom map
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661-Pete
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Re: Historical OS Maps of England & Wales Online

Post by 661-Pete »

Thanks for this! A fascinating glimpse of the way things used to be: if, maybe, leaving one a little wistful: all those rolling green meadows and woodlands which are now wall-to-wall concrete. :( Now all I need is a time machine.... :roll:

And the way names have changed too. A little village (yes, there still are villages) called Wineham, which I often cycle through, apparently used to be called Wyndham. Perhaps I've been pronouncing it wrong all these years?
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pstallwood
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Re: Historical OS Maps of England & Wales Online

Post by pstallwood »

Many thanks.

Passed link on to a few people in my family who are interested in this type of thing.

Peter
Cheesedisease
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Joined: 29 May 2010, 11:54am

Re: Historical OS Maps of England & Wales Online

Post by Cheesedisease »

Just a quick follow up for those interested since we've just completed the second stage of this project...

You can now view Ordnance Survey Six-Inch to the Mile mapping for England & Wales as a seamless georeferenced layer. This presents the 11,739 sheets produced to cover England and Wales between 1888 to 1913 as a seamless layer, and allows this Six-Inch mapping to be viewed and compared with modern map layers.

The layer can be enjoyed as both an overlay and in our split-screen viewer:

Explore Georeferenced Maps overlay: http://maps.nls.uk/openlayers.cfm?m=1&id=171
Side by Side viewer: http://maps.nls.uk/openlayers.cfm?m=2&id=171

Links to both of these viewers and all editions of these maps are all still available at: http://maps.nls.uk/os/6inch-england-and-wales/index.html

And for more historical mapping please visit: http://maps.nls.uk
Psamathe
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Re: Historical OS Maps of England & Wales Online

Post by Psamathe »

Excellent resource.

One minor point - the map date (1st published/survey/whatever) is not displayed anywhere. when first zooming in on the single map view there is a very broad range of dates above the map. However, if you switch to the size by side view then back to the single map view that date is narrowed down a bit. But it would be great to be able to see the date for the map being viewed (and I appreciate it could be difficult where multiple maps are being viewed at the same time, but then maybe give several dates). I was zooming in and moving around to the point where I would have definitely been only viewing a single map.

Ian
Geoff.D
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Re: Historical OS Maps of England & Wales Online

Post by Geoff.D »

Many thanks for this posting. A huge resource......and wonderful.
pete75
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Re: Historical OS Maps of England & Wales Online

Post by pete75 »

Brilliant!! Will we still be able to see it after the 18th Sept??
'Give me my bike, a bit of sunshine - and a stop-off for a lunchtime pint - and I'm a happy man.' - Reg Baker
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