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Into the Archive: Thousands of maps and endless fascinating stories to be told


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2nd edition Ordnance Survey map showing part of Poolewe.
2nd edition Ordnance Survey map showing part of Poolewe.

At the Highland Archive Centre we frequently welcome family and local historians researching people and places.

Often they have come across a place name on a birth, marriage or death certificate, or a census entry, and want to know more about it. Maps can provide a very visual understanding of where a place sits in relation to the geography around it. They can give an insight into how far children travelled to school or what the surrounding countryside might have looked like at the time.

The Highland Archive Centre holds around 10,000 maps, from Ordnance Survey and National Grid, to estate maps and Inland Revenue surveys.

Maps have existed for many hundreds of years but the first comprehensive survey of Britain wasn’t undertaken until the 1840s. Mapping of the Highlands had started with Roy’s Military Map following the Jacobite Uprising of 1745 but had subsequently stalled (although in the rest of Britain maps continued to be created when driven by military needs). The Napoleonic Wars led to the surveying of England and Wales in the early 1800s and Scotland followed, but it wasn’t until the final sheet was published in 1882 that a complete set of Ordnance Survey maps existed.

Ordnance Survey Name Book entry for Bealach na Bà.
Ordnance Survey Name Book entry for Bealach na Bà.

The Ordnance Survey maps held at the Highland Archive Centre are mostly 1st and 2nd editions and these are divided into six-inch to the mile and 25-inch to the mile scales (the more in-depth 25 inch for urban and cultivated areas only). We are often able to place first (1843-1882) and second editions (1892-1907) next to each other and see the changes that have impacted a given area.

Alongside the first edition Ordnance Survey maps, name books were published. These were created to record disputes about place names. They list every place name shown on the maps, provide witnesses to spellings and record any thoughts about the origin of the place names or notable stories (including several Gallow Hills, named after places of execution). The Highland Archive Centre holds many Highland name books on microfilm and encourage people to use them in conjunction with the maps - they make fascinating reading.

2nd edition Ordnance Survey map showing Dingwall.
2nd edition Ordnance Survey map showing Dingwall.

At the Archive Centre we use maps for a multitude of reasons - to help family historians locate remote farms, to work out which school someone’s ancestor was likely to have attended, to show the changing industry of a town, to prove a boundary line, to locate sites of archaeological importance and to inspire children to write stories about landscapes very different from the ones they are familiar with.

The Highland Archive Centre has now reopened by appointment only; bookings can be made for Tuesdays and Thursdays. To make a booking or to enquire about remote archive or family history research please contact us, archives@highlifehighland.com tel: 01349 781130 or see our website for further details, https://www.highlifehighland.com/archives-service/covid-19-archive-updates/


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