The oldmaps.co.uk website

[michiel]

Hello all,

Is there anyone who has regularly used the "Old Maps" website at http://www.old-maps.co.uk/maps.html ? I did, and I got pretty well pestered after trying a time too many. Would it be wise to enter into their member subscription scheme ? They have an amazing collection of 1 : 2500 and 1 : 10500 O.S. maps with railway data galore. The downside of it is their steep pricing.

Any advice ?

[John Hinson]

Hi Michiel,

A while back the server for the site used to fail on a daily basis owing to the heavy demand from the likes of you and I wanting to check things out. They changed the system several times - and at one time they were very specific that use of the site was only for viewing maps when considering purchase, although I think that is no longer in their Terms of Use. They also reduced the quality of images to reduce the load.

Most recently they have introduced the option of a subscription for viewing better quality images - personally I am comfortable with that as I recognise that research is not really what they are there for. But I use the site almost daily for reference and I can understand the cost can be difficult to justify if use is not so intense. Being realistic, it is an incredibly heavy site and must be very expensive to run in server terms. I doubt they sell enough maps to finance it from that.

The bad news is that in the last few days I have noticed some recent server failures as of old.

There are several other sites offering similar information - they do not tend to be as easy to navigate but the output quality is usually better.

John

PS - I think this disussion would be best in the "Historical" section so am moving it across.

[Mansfield South]

For Scottish maps, the NLS site is very good, though it works in a very different way to Old-Maps

http://maps.nls.uk/geo/find/#

The Irish Republic has a site at http://maps.osi.ie/publicviewer/#V1,588882,739883,0,10.

[michiel]

Thanks for the advice. I have also found the NLS site very rewarding. Maybe I shall enlist to Old Maps anyway.

[AlanMR]

The NLS website has recently expanded is coverage to include England and Wales 6 inch/1:10000 up to c.1940 at good definition.
http://maps.nls.uk/os/6inch-england-and ... index.html

[michiel]

Thanks for the pointer!