Old maps

[Tim Hall]

In my working career as a geologist, we were forever poring over old maps when looking for previous uses of an industrial site up for redevelopment.  It's difficult to know what contaminants to test for if you don't know the previous uses. 

I spent hours poring over those old maps,  absolutely fascinating what you can find.

I look at old boreholes stuff on the BGS website from time time, for work. One time I was trying to find out what was under the ground near Brighton and clicked on a borehole near Woodingdean. The scanned documents showed a well 390m deep, which further time wasting during working hours frantic research showed to be the deepest hand dug well in the UK. There's a letter included, dated 1934, on Volks Electric Railway headed notepaper, signed by Magnus Volk, recounting how he watched it being dug aged 9 or 10. He was 83 when he wrote the letter.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Know Your Place is a website that allows you to overlay old maps (and other information) against modern OS.
https://maps.bristol.gov.uk/kyp/?edition=
https://www.bl.uk/projects/know-your-place

[Jurek]

In my working career as a geologist, we were forever poring over old maps when looking for previous uses of an industrial site up for redevelopment.  It's difficult to know what contaminants to test for if you don't know the previous uses. 

I spent hours poring over those old maps,  absolutely fascinating what you can find.

I look at old boreholes stuff on the BGS website from time time, for work. One time I was trying to find out what was under the ground near Brighton and clicked on a borehole near Woodingdean. The scanned documents showed a well 390m deep, which further time wasting during working hours frantic research showed to be the deepest hand dug well in the UK. There's a letter included, dated 1934, on Volks Electric Railway headed notepaper, signed by Magnus Volk, recounting how he watched it being dug aged 9 or 10. He was 83 when he wrote the letter.

My bold
Did you know that the first version of that ran on rails laid in the sea, as opposed to next to it?

[Tim Hall]

The words "what" and "could possibly go wrong" spring to mind.

[Chris S]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who indulges in this particular pleasure.

Here's where I go to when I need to burn away vast tracts of time: https://www.archiuk.com/archi/archi_maps.htm.

The 1888-1913 maps of Co Durham are a constant source of fascination to me. The place names are the same, but it's like an entirely different industrial overlay over everything.

[giropaul]

A recently deceased friend had his Father’s Barts dissected maps. Particularly favoured by CTC cyclists I gather.

[Jurek]

The words "what" and "could possibly go wrong" spring to mind.

IIRC Adrian has some detailed info on this.

[perpetual dan]

I look at old boreholes stuff on the BGS website from time time, for work. One time I was trying to find out what was under the ground near Brighton and clicked on a borehole near Woodingdean. The scanned documents showed a well 390m deep, which further time wasting during working hours frantic research showed to be the deepest hand dug well in the UK. There's a letter included, dated 1934, on Volks Electric Railway headed notepaper, signed by Magnus Volk, recounting how he watched it being dug aged 9 or 10. He was 83 when he wrote the letter.

I used to live in Woodingdean and must have been past that many times without realising.

[cygnet]

In my working career as a geologist, we were forever poring over old maps when looking for previous uses of an industrial site up for redevelopment.  It's difficult to know what contaminants to test for if you don't know the previous uses. 

I spent hours poring over those old maps,  absolutely fascinating what you can find.

One of the great pleasures of my job is reading through desktop studies by our Geotech team. Historic maps, land usage, old waterways etc. Fascinating.
This year I learned that the Italian Fountains in Kensington Gardens were fed from Hampstead Heath