What Britain used to look like from the air

[oldMohawk]

The links below may be of interest to anyone wanting to see nice aerial photos of Britain between 1919 and 1953.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18542080

https://britainfromabove.org.uk/

 

[devonjim]

https://www.cambridgeairphotos.com/areas/birmingham/
Just come across this website, some 2700 Birmingham pictures, thought it might be of interest.

 

[devonjim]

I didn't find it anywhere as good as the Britainfromabove site.

 

[mikejee]

No, the resolution is not good enough to be much use. Wonder if that is because the resolution on th eoriginal plate is poor, or whether they have not used it to its bestv potential

 

[oldMohawk]

Looks very much like a 'work in progress' site with not much work yet done.
Image resolution poor but maybe a user id and UIS or Raven password needed to see higher.
The map does not appear for me and very large number of 'Sorry, no image available yet' notices on most areas except Cambridge.
Some years ago I read that the RAF used Canberra aircraft to photograph the whole of Britain in 1951. Obviously there were a very large number of images and some RAF department decided they did not have enough space to store them and chucked them. Someone in the RAF lived in Leeds and decided to keep the images of Leeds and some of them can be seen here.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/phill_dvsn/sets/72157636350325123/
I have seen more than the ones shown on the above link but cannot find them at the moment.

 

[mikejee]

Yes you are correct. the guy who saved them was named Phill , and was a major contributor to the site Secret Leeds (bit like BHF but concerned with Leeds). He rescued the photos. Later he had a strong disagreement with other members of the forum. Phill favouring a very pro-Facebook approach, while others considering a more organised, sensible, useful approach, and went off in a huff (does this sound familiar)

 

[oldMohawk]

Thanks Mike, I wondered where they had gone from the 'Secret Leeds' site.