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Drawings for first OS maps

mikejee

mikejee

Super Moderator
Staff member
The original drawings for the first ordnance survey maps , which in the case of Birmingham were around 1814-17 , have been available on the British Library site for some time. However they can now be viewed overlaid on present Google maps ,with variable opacity. Not very large scale, but interesting. The birmingham area and south of is at
https://britishlibrary.georeferencer.com/map/GEcIh88f0PMjkVQPzYGZxC/201311201403-x0PO5Y/visualize
and Aston & Sutton Coldfield is at
https://britishlibrary.georeferencer.com/map/MzN80DpMoSHTWAc1XHnSFm/201311201257-RcITmT/visualize
 
I'm intested too MikeJee. Going back 50 years in my parents house I traced over road and street maps using greaseproof paper just to see if maybe my idea of linear networking would improve. Absolute fail. Even the mild inclinations of the land would have been unworkable.

But modern civil engineering has meant you can draw these straight lines and get away with it. You might have to bulldoze a thousand peoples homes and memories but this is progress!

I still have my grandparents Bartholemews altlas from the 1930s, and my parents atlases from the 1960s mentioned earlier. Nowadays wish it was still like that.
 
Mike,

Thanks for posting those links. Nice to think that those maps were being compiled as three of my great grandfathers and one of my great great grandfathers were young children and before we had any public railway systems. That was 100 years before the current Stratford Road bridge over the River Cole was built too and we had two bridges - it seems quite wide then.

Maurice
 
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