HERs, journals & other resources

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Mapping data across Britain

Across the Roman Empire

The National Library of Scotland have digitised a whole host of old maps, including town plans, estate maps, and military maps.  Whilst the majority are Scottish, they have digitised the majority of Ordnance Survey maps covering Great Britain from before 1960 (see below).

Various series of OS and Bartholomew maps are available, although most important for our purposes are the 6 inch to the mile Ordnance Survey maps, not just of Scotland, but also of England and Wales. Digitisation of the entire 25inch to the mile map series is in progress. There are two viewing options for the 6 inch, either as a seamless zoomable layer, or as individual sheets.

The sites listed below provide a variety of old maps, some of national coverage, some with a selection of 18th & 19th century regional maps. Please be aware that there may well be copyright restrictions on some of these maps. For up to date copyright information, please go to

A Vision of Britain through time brings together historical surveys of Britain to create a record of how the country and its localities have changed. It was created by Humphrey Southall and the Great Britain Historical GIS Project ("GIS" stands for "Geographical Information System"). The project is based in the Department of Geography of the University of Portsmouth. Maps are downloadable and appear to all be reproducible under a Creative Commons licence, although for each map set a standard statement giving recognition must be used.

The Charles Close Society for the Study of Ordnance Survey Maps provides a a page of Online Resources, most of which link through to the National Library of Scotland. The One-inch Old Series from 1806 is also here, courtesy of the national Libraries of Australia and New Zealand. Old maps are located via a modern map interface - once you have located the place you want to view, the range of maps is excellent and easily accessible.

The link takes you to a selection chart, which when clicked provides a range of options for that particular map square. Maps are providded by the National Libraries of Australia and New Zealand - no attribution is required for publication.  Please note that the Old Series (1805 onwards) only covers England and Wales south of a line roughly from the R. Ribble to the R. Humber.

The Historic Counties Trust now provides mapping of our Historic County boundaries at either 1:5000 scale or in a simplified format, as either shapefiles (for GIS packages) or kmz (for Google Earth). The data is provided free for both non-commercial and commercial use.

This brilliant resource is now available as downloadable shapefiles (for GIS packages) courtesy of Dr. Stuart Brookes, on ADS. Dr. Brooks has mapped all the Shires and Hundreds (or Wapentakes) of England as recorded in the Domesday book.

Old Maps Online provides a unparalleled gateway to historical maps in libraries around the world,  indexing over 400,000 maps. Since the imagery is drawn from so many sources, the quality is variable and whilst most of it is excellent, some sources (such as the British Library) only supply low resolution images, which is unfortunate.

This fascinating online collection from Canada contains about 400 old maps from Britain (amongst over 3000 in total), and is not part of Old Maps Online. Maps are viewable at high resolution, and include Armstrong’s maps of Durham, Northumberland and Lincolnshire from the late 18th century, which show known Roman roads.