Top 10 Archives… No.3

12th December 2011

Maps (of all varieties and shapes and sizes!)

Maps show what a place looked like in years gone by and make it possible to track how the land has developed over time; helping to bring the history of the area to life. The Record Office has a large variety of maps for you to look at including:

Map of Church Honeybourne, Poden manor. Surveyed by Francis Allen 1652

Ordnance Survey (OS) maps which start in the 1880s. The sizes vary from 1:1000 or 6 inch and 1:250 or 25 inch.

Tithe maps dating from around the 1840s

Enclosure maps from the 18th and 19th Centuries

Estate plans – for example the Pirton Map from the Croome collection and the Vernon Estate map book

Maps available in the Worcester City collection

Goad maps showing businesses in Worcester High Street

Public Schemes from 1792 onwards, for examples maps and plans of railways and electricity companies

Map of the Pirton Estates by Mark Pierce, 1623. From the Croome collection.

These collections are very heavily used at the Record Office as they are popular for tracing the history of houses; mapping boundary changes and studying changes in land use over time, amongst many other research purposes. They are used by members of the public, the Archaeology service and also staff from other County Council departments.

If you want to find out whether the Record Office holds a map for the area you are interested in researching, we have an online database available for you to search. Simply select the parish you wish to view from the drop down menu or type in a key word to search. Visit our website now to view the maps database and many others that we have available online.

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