The Historic Download facility in Digimap allows you to quickly and easily define an area you want data for and then to select the particular historic map products you need. You can define an area on the map using a variety of tools, including: dragging a box, entering coordinates, specifying a tile name, or selecting the whole visible area. Once you have defined an area you can then select which product(s) you want for that area. You can add multiple products for different areas to download in the same order. The system uses the familiar shopping basket analogy where you add products to your basket and then checkout to submit your order for data.
Note: although we use a shopping basket, all data is free, however there are Terms and Conditions that cover the use of the data.
You can get more help during the download process by clicking on the
information 
buttons.
When you log in to Digimap you will be presented with the Digimap Home page.
Choose Historic then the previous version of Historic Download:
You can search for your area of interest either by panning and zooming around the main map interface or you can use the Search interface to enter a place name, postcode or OS Grid Reference.
You can define the area you want to get data for by selecting one of the options in Step 1 in the panel on the left of the screen. You can draw a rectangle to specify the area, or you can simply select the currently visible area. You can also select an area by specifying the coordinates or the tile name.
The 
button can be used to clear the selected
area and start again.
All historic data available through Digimap are provided by the Historic Download facility. The products available are grouped into a number of themes, which can be expanded by clicking on the small plus symbol.
To find out more information about each product you can select the Info link. The Product Information pop-up contains details about the scale, formats, allowance, grid size, licence and uses. You can click on a link to the licence agreement for the product you are interested in. The products available through Historic Download have the Historic Digimap Licence.
The Show Availability button on the Product Information popup allows you to see the outlines of the available map tiles. This is useful when selecting data as most of the products available through Historic Download do not have national coverage.
The availability grids can also be turned on/off through the Show
Availability Grid panel on the right side of the map window. This
panel also allows you to display standard Ordnance Survey reference grids
and Postcode Area boundaries. Help is provided by clicking on the 
button.
Beside each product there will be an indication of the Allowance. This is the number of tiles or area that you are currently allowed to download in one go together with the number of tiles you have currently selected (given your defined area of interest). The number specifying the area you have selected is shown in red if it exceeds the allowance.
We have set these limits so that our system can cope with the vast majority of users' requests in a timely manner and so that users do not inadvertently take more data than they are able to deal with.
The County Series datasets cover nearly the whole country at the 1:10 560 scale; the 1:2500 scale covers everywhere except the more remote moorland areas. The maps were surveyed by county so there are overlapping sheets at the boundaries. The nature of the overlap can vary, some counties were mapped to the boundary only, and the rest of the sheet was left blank, this means you may get blank National Grid tiles. Other maps used the data form other counties' surveys to fill in the blank area so you may get duplicate data from overlapping tiles. Sometimes the area of a neighbouring county was re-surveyed to fill in the map sheet so you may get different data in overlapping areas. There are some regions where up to four counties have overlapped, especially for the 1:10 560 data which has larger sheet sizes.
Note the different scales of County Series maps are completely different sets of maps with different coverages and publishing dates.
For more detailed information see the summary of maps, scales, dates and coverage and map series timeline.
The National Grid maps come from the beginning of the
Post War era of modern mapping of Britain. The maps were produced on the
National Grid and so have no overlaps. The coverage is good for most of
Britain but poor in the upland areas. The 1:1250 are found only in urban
areas and the Latest Edition of the 1:10 000 data has national coverage
of the whole of Britain excepting one or two lost map sheets. This last
edition is a compound product that includes a map for every location possible
at 1:10 000 or 1:10 560, some of the maps in this edition are actually
County Series maps as they were the only time the areas were mapped at
this scale. Maps can be found that date right up to the conversion of
the Ordnance Survey to Digital mapping around 1996.
Note the different scales of National Grid maps are completely different sets of maps with different coverages and publishing dates.
For more detailed information see the summary of maps, scales, dates and coverage and map series timeline.
The Town Plans datasets cover the major urban centres
from around the last half of the 1800s, with revisions continuing till
1939. The town plans were made at three scales; 1:1056, 1:528 and 1:500.
There is not much overlap in the area covered between these scales except
in some of the major cities. Map sheets and tiles for all the scales are
combined into one dataset though you can remove any scales you are not
interested in at a later stage in the download process. As the plans only
exist for the centres of the towns that were most important when they
were being surveyed, we have produced a list
of the towns covered by the product. Have a look to see if there is
coverage for the town you are interested in, if not then try the 1:1250
or 1:2500 scale County Series Maps
There are four editions of the Town Plans, each covers a smaller number of towns and cities with the 3rd and 4th editions covering only a very small number of cities with most data in the London area.
Note the different scales of Town Plan maps are completely different sets of maps with different coverages and publishing dates.
For more detailed information see the summary of maps, scales, dates and coverage and map series timeline.
You add products to your basket by clicking on the "Add to Basket" icon, which turns green when a product has been selected.
Please note that although the term "Basket" is used, all data is free to download.
This will open the Basket interface:
The Theme can be changed by clicking on the name or the arrow (▼) next to them.
The Theme selection in Historic Download is used to specify whether you wish to receive Original Sheets or National Grid tiles of the area selected:
Note that not all products have all the options available to change, for example the National Grid datasets are only available as National Grid tiles as the original sheets were captured using the national grid. If there are no options then there will be no change link in the basket.
If you wish to select more data to download you can click on the Add more data button. You can then either add more products or the same area or make a new area selection and add products for it. If you want to start again click on the Clear Basket button.
You can select the 
button
for information about the product and to see the area for which it was
selected.
Once you are happy with your selection click "Request Download".
To order your products you need to give the order a name and then select "Request Download".
You will then receive two emails at the email address indicated.
Click on the "Download" button to start the download.
There are separate pages that give you information about how to use the data in various GIS software packages.
Not found what you are looking for? Please ask a question or give feedback by emailing (digimap@ed.ac.uk) or chatting with the Digimap team.
Share a to this page.
You may also find more information or communicate with us on our Social Media sites:
| © University of Edinburgh. |