Historic Digimap delivers a range of historical Ordnance Survey maps dating from 1843 to 1996.  Maps are scanned images of paper originals and vary in scale depending on the location and date. The maps are provided by Landmark Information Group and are available as image files, either as the original data sheets or as national grid “cookie cut” tiles which have been rectified to fit onto the modern national grid. Data covers the whole of Great Britain and is available either as maps generated online by Digimap or to download for use with appropriate application software.

The mapping interface allows the user to view and interact with the full range of maps, from smaller scale 1:10560 County Series to individual Town Plans at 1:500 scale.  The scales and dates of maps available varies with each location across the country. Users can search for specific locations anywhere in Great Britain using a full range of search options. Interactive tools allow the user to measure areas and distances on the map, as well as add their own annotations and labels to create simple datasets which can be both imported and exported in a range of formats. Maps, and any associated annotations, can be saved for further examination at a later date. An overview map is provided to give wider context to specific locations and a range of information about the map displayed is available, including the survey and publication dates.  Print files of each map can be generated at a full range of paper sizes from A4 to A0, as either PDF, JPG or PNG. Print files include additional marginalia such as the user’s name and institution, date, scale bar and optional national grid lines.  Annotations added to the map by the user may also optionally be included in the print file.

All maps are available for download as TIF images and are available either as original County sheets or as national grid tiles.  Users can search for and select their area of interest using either the search function or the map, with options to specify the area of interest using the coordinates of a bounding box.  Multiple map products can be requested for the same area in a single download order. An “order history” is maintained to allow re-ordering of the same dataset for the same area, while requesting an alternative version. 

A wealth of support resources accompanies the service, offering guides on the data specifications, the use of data within popular application software as well as detailed instructions on the use of the service itself.