Historic Map Resources

I would have posted a list of the websites links I have found useful but having spent an hour checking them and writing the post IE crashed again and I lost heart.
In the meantime hear is a non-link list to keep you going.

Keys to the past (NE England All decades to 1980's)

Old-Maps (Mainly pre-airfield but does have some gem from WW1 and pre-WW2 plus some from 1952 e.g. Stansted, Sawbridgeworth, York, Bodney, Stornoway)

OSNI (Northern Ireland - register free and has fair coverage of most airfields before they became invisble!)

Promp (Free to register for a user account and excellent coverage of the postwar period - previews are of low qulity and size but if you buy they are quite good. Be aware that you may have to purchase more than 1 frame to get full coverageso it might be quite expensive)

Sorry about the lack of links if anyone cannot find them via Google I will post them.

I think I have already mention the OSNI site for Northern Ireland Historic Maps. They suffer from intrusive watermarks so it you want reasonable ones of airfields try this site.

maps.ehsni.gov.uk/MapViewer/Default.aspx#

The older maps only appear as 190metres scale but they look okay and don't have the watermark.

In addiion if you zoom in you get aerial photos, although poorer quality and overlaid with map data they are the closest you can get for NI at present for free.

It may be worth taking a look at www.old-maps.co.uk/maps.html as they now have post war coverage which includes most airfields up to 1990. They are zoomable as well. Also included are the Russian maps which may fill gaps in coverage of airfields blanked out for secrecy. Not sure of coverage of this new batch but I suspect it covers most areas. The snag is that you have to mess about to get full coverage of, say, Gaydon in 1976 at 1:2500 scale.

The www.old-maps.co.uk/ website has had a revamp and it is now easier to view the areas around your selected location in the enhanced or full screen view. Previously you had to go back and re-centre the marker. The enhanced view is for subscribers only but it is something I use a lot so am happy to pay - at present anyway.

Or if its eastern England you want, you could just pop into the archives.

Having used the maps at TNA and NLS (via website) I found the limiting factor was date ranges. I prefer to look at each map at both major scales to check that features don't pre-date their assumed build date. I find this preferable to the quality you get on the NLS website as their maps stop at the mid fifties and most doesn't show airfields, except as white spaces. Having said that maps can be hugely inconsistent with one map showing, say, a quadrant shelter which was removed decades ago but another not showing one that is known to be extant despite being the same scale and date. I hope the NLS maps with be added to as the maps fall outside the copyright period as their quality is outstanding. Sheet maps at TNA suffer the same date range problem plus the additional problem of photographing those large sheets.

One oddity I have found is that some issues of the 1:25000 scale (2.5") show an lot of range features like arrows and targets from both old and current ranges but not in the ones before or after. I think these date from the late 1990s to early 2000s. Very odd!

A shame those maps didn't show danger areas.