We probably don’t feature enough old maps of London on here – we tend to go for the latest glitzy maps, but to make up, here is a huge collection of older maps, which we have received multiple tips about over the last few weeks!
It’s not specifically London-related, but Old Maps Online, an innovative way of cataloguing lots of old maps, has many of the London area. The website was produced by the University of Portsmouth, with a JISC grant. It uses the Google Maps API, with a custom styling of the background map and appropriately themed controls.
As a catalogue, the maps themselves are stored and viewed on other websites, but Old Maps Online shows the bounding box indicator, and the preview of the map, allowing quick and easy viewing. (Note the bounding box often extends beyond the map boundaries, as it is always represented by a north-facing rectangle and quite a few of the maps are not aligned to north.)
A “bottomless” scrollbar ensures the list of the maps keeps on going, as you explore.
Background map data is Copyright Google 2012.
This is pretty awesome. Thanks for sharing! The resolution of the maps are really amazing. It’ll be great for our research going forward.