Tony and I were contacted yesterday by our colleague Chris Fleet, Senior Map Curator at the National Library of Scotland with the exciting news that NLS have made freely available their earliest editions of Ordnance Survey National Grid maps at 1:1250 scale covering Edinburgh and London.  These were Ordnance Survey’s most detailed maps in the 20th century, and they show nearly all permanent features of over 1 square metre in size. They show excellent detail of commercial and residential buildings, railway stations, pubs, hotels, docks, factories and parks, as well as house names and numbers.

The maps can be viewed as a georeferenced overlay and as a dual-map / side-by-side viewer, allowing direct comparison with modern Google or Bing maps:

Edinburgh   georeferenced overlay    side-by-side viewer

London         georeferenced overlay    side-by-side viewer

Chris tells us this mapping layer will expand geographically over the next year as NLS continue to scan more OS National Grid post-War mapping.  To whet your appetite we’ve added a few sample London maps below.

King’s Cross and St Pancras Stations

Isle of Dogs docks

South Bank Festival of Britain site

Chris would love you to come and visit the NLS site and browse through these fantastic 1940s-1960s maps for Edinburgh and London.