Online Maps for details of non-extant railway locations.

[Right Away]

Not sure if this has been mentioned before on the forum. 

The maps.nls.uk website has links to older maps - see https://maps.nls.uk/os/national-grid/

Might take a bit of playing around (see guide boxes) but selecting the top option (individual sheets) a map of the UK opens. Having zoomed to a chosen location, tapping or clicking can open a map of yesteryear, which can be zoomed for closer detail.

Quite interesting for showing details of railway related locations which are no longer around or have changed significantly.

 

See attached screenshot showing Stewarts Lane and Nine Elms sheds and a further map of Wadebridge.

 

 

Edited February 20, 2022 by Right Away
correction

[Paul H Vigor]

48 minutes ago, Right Away said:

Not sure if this has been mentioned before on the forum. 

The maps.nls.uk website has links to older maps - see https://maps.nls.uk/os/national-grid/

Might take a bit of playing around (see guide boxes) but selecting the top option (individual sheets) a map of the UK opens. Having zoomed to a chosen location, tapping or clicking can open a map of yesteryear, which can be zoomed for closer detail.

Quite interesting for showing details of railway related locations which are no longer around or have changed significantly.

 

See attached screenshot showing Stewarts Lane and Nine Elms sheds and a further map of Wadebridge.

 

 

For historic Welsh railway locations, have a play with this package!

https://places.library.wales/

[DCB]

The Nationl Library of Scotland Maps are great except the sheets forming the wider picture were not always, maybe not ever, drawn on the same date.  The 25" sequence from Foss Cross to Withington on the MSWJR span about 20 years, Single line at Foss Cross, temporary arrangement of tracks while doubling was carried out pre 1900 yet Chedworth Woods Siding (Actually in Withington Parish, post 1917 is shown.  Some of the Forest of Dean 25 inch have railways ending abruptly at page edges.

That said even the authors of the MSWJR books couldn't find details of the Chedworth Woods sidings so the scots did us one massive favour.

[burgundy]

For much of the West Country (but apparently not Cornwall), Know Your Place provides successive generations of maps that can be shared on the same page, plus a lot of historical information.

Best wishes 

Eric 

[Quarryscapes]

On 20/02/2022 at 15:12, Paul H Vigor said:

For historic Welsh railway locations, have a play with this package!

https://places.library.wales/

Interesting as they are, Tithe maps predate most railways in Wales.

 

NLS maps are the current best bet, but the 25" series is incomplete, and 6" series maps are often inaccurate concerning railway features.

[Kris]

1 hour ago, burgundy said:

For much of the West Country (but apparently not Cornwall), Know Your Place

Shame that, hopefully the coverage increases at some point in the future. 

[ikcdab]

41 minutes ago, Quarryscapes said:

Interesting as they are, Tithe maps predate most railways in Wales.

 

NLS maps are the current best bet, but the 25" series is incomplete, and 6" series maps are often inaccurate concerning railway features.

NLS maps are a fantastic resource.  It depends on how you define incomplete.  I think NLS have digitised all available maps that are out of copyright, so my understanding is that the NLS series is complete. If there are any missing, it is because the OS never produced them.  Certainly, there was never complete coverage of GB at 25", some rural areas only ever had 6".  Some urban areas also have 50" (1:1250) and some have 1:500 also.

As to your second point, well yes. It would be impossible for the OS surveyors to track every change in the railway infrastructure, any map is only a snapshot of what there was on the day the surveyor visited.

[keefer]

It may be a case of, with some map series, that they haven't got round to digitising them all yet - so if there's a particular area at a particular scale you're after then maybe check back every so often.

That said, as @ikcdabmentions, a lot of the larger scale (i.e. more detailed) map series did not cover the more remote/rural areas - I've looked at some Scottish locations (West coast) and apart from a 'modern' 1:10000, some places only had 1 or 2 pre-1960 six-inch maps, nothing else!

 

if you zoom out to show the whole UK and select a map series, you can see which maps they actually have available - some isolated maps may not be anywhere near the next one!

 

Edited June 11, 2022 by keefer

[Paul H Vigor]

10 hours ago, Quarryscapes said:

Interesting as they are, Tithe maps predate most railways in Wales.

 

NLS maps are the current best bet, but the 25" series is incomplete, and 6" series maps are often inaccurate concerning railway features.

Indeed. I suggested this site because it is not just about 1840s tithe maps. It also includes zoomable largescale OS cartography and modern air photography. Explore it, see what it has to offer!

 

As an archaeological landscape investigator, this is one of my 'go to' sources.

Edited February 23, 2022 by Paul H Vigor
to add information

[pb_devon]

12 hours ago, Paul H Vigor said:

Indeed. I suggested this site because it is not just about 1840s tithe maps. It also includes zoomable largescale OS cartography and modern air photography. Explore it, see what it has to offer!

 

As an archaeological landscape investigator, this is one of my 'go to' sources.

This might be a better link for the wider resources available: https://www.library.wales/collections/learn-more/maps