I noticed the other week that 'old-maps' had extended their free zoom up one notch - perhaps they're feeling threatened...

When they started charging OTT, *and* the NLS started rolling out 6 inch (let alone 25inch) overlays, It was the beginning of the end. I don't know anyone that uses them at all nowadays.

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Old-maps is good for tracking down 20thC coals.

Remember that Crown Copyright is 50 years and has expired on most of the maps that interest us, so if you have originals you can freely scan them and put them on a web site. It is a bit greedy to charge people for what was free.

There are sites other than NLS with a good selection of OS maps too. Can't find the links as I am using the phone right now, not near the PC.

Sadly you can't freely copy material from old - maps because their site makes a new "arrangement" on which they can claim copyright for 70 years. I always feel that that is unfair as they never did the real work of making the maps. But if you or I make a copy from a legally free source we also can claim copyright for 70 years. I hope no-one here is greedy enough to do that without releasing them under a free licence such as Creative Commons or GPL. That effectively makes them free foe ever, so we will never have difficulties finding the maps we need again.

The business model of old - maps is very much last century and if they close down it will be a good thing. Information, including maps, wants to be free in this century and even the Cameron government is taking that view to the extent possible. Strangely, Blair/Brown took the opposite view, possibly due to being cronies of Bill Gates.

Cameron tried to do something about copyright on "orphaned works" but the EU severely constrained what he was able to achieve. Maybe after Brexit...

(Puts flameproof suit on...)
:)

Just noticed that there has been a significant increase in coverage. In particular it now covers the Peak District! Many happy hours of browsing coming up!

I'll be ecstatic if/when they publish full coverage of Wales.

The NLS have done us all a big favour and got us out from under those greedy domains which offered small deals for big money. When I was an architecture student in the 1970s, I had to run along to Stanfords Map Shop in Long Acre in order to get the OS 1:1250 site maps I needed for my projects at £7 for one sheet, IIRC.

IIRC it cost me £16 for a map for planning purposes mid70s.

I'll be ecstatic if/when they publish full coverage of Wales.

The annoying thing about the NLS coverage is that they have the whole of England and Wales at 1:25000 around 1960-ish but no coverage of Scotland.

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I'll be ecstatic if/when they publish full coverage of Wales.

The annoying thing about the NLS coverage is that they have the whole of England and Wales at 1:25000 around 1960-ish but no coverage of Scotland.

They have some coverage in the south of Scotland on the 1:25000, no idea of the dates other than the stated 1937-1961 on the NLS layer.

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When North Wales is covered, I also will spend much more time looking at maps on the NLS site.

If you need to refer to a particular map frequently, do remember that download copies are available from NLS at reasonable prices (compared to other suppliers). Buying map copies should help the NLS's massive project of map scanning which is well worth supporting.

Have you noticed that adjacent sheets sometimes don't line up that well? I think I have discovered the answer. They are scanned slightly crooked. On 2 adjacent sheets of the 6" maps of North Wales, rotating 1 sheet by 0.2 degrees ACW and the other by 0.8 degrees CW sorted that out and the match is now perfect.

Looking at the westerly extent of the new coverage, it seems to follow the English-Welsh border fairly closely. Is this an indication that Wales won't be covered? I do hope not.

Have you noticed that adjacent sheets sometimes don't line up that well? I think I have discovered the answer. They are scanned slightly crooked. On 2 adjacent sheets of the 6" maps of North Wales, rotating 1 sheet by 0.2 degrees ACW and the other by 0.8 degrees CW sorted that out and the match is now perfect.

And not always at the same scale or magnification either. I found one in the Forest of Dean that was slightly larger than all the adjacent sheets. Mind you that's a small price given the huge task of scanning them all in.

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Looking at the westerly extent of the new coverage, it seems to follow the English-Welsh border fairly closely. Is this an indication that Wales won't be covered? I do hope not.

I suspect that's simply because they are issuing whole counties at a time.

A considerable amount now added to the georeferenced section of the mapping at 25 inch scale. Including a considerable part of Wales

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A considerable amount now added to the georeferenced section of the mapping at 25 inch scale. Including a considerable part of Wales

That's as much as NLS holds for Wales: the seamless version makes use of all available editions, though its mostly the two revisions from the 1890s to the 1910s. Also bear in mind that the mountains were generally surveyed and published only at six-inch which creates further gaps in 1:2,500 coverage.

I was wondering about this, is that as much as Wales will get now?

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There will probably be some more. I've spotted a few sheets that are "cut off" and obviously have continuations, but I doubt it's a significant volume.

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Straying off track slightly,if anyone is interested in military/family history, NLS also have WW1 Military Maps (trench maps) with side-by-side Bing satelite imagery.

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