August 2023
Missing Ordnance Survey large-scale maps of Great Britain not held by the National Library of Scotland
We have listed in these spreadsheets maps which are known to have been published, but which are not held by the National Library of Scotland. We are always keen to fill these gaps where possible.
- 25 inch County Series (links to Google Drive sheet)
- Six inch County Series (links to Google Drive sheet)
- National Grid 1:1,250/1:2,500 (links to Google Drive sheet)
Please note the following about these listings:
- The lists exclude items which the Library holds, but which are not yet scanned and online. They exclude, for example, many first edition six-inch maps of England and Wales, which the Library holds in large volumes which it has not yet been possible to scan. They also exclude most of our National Grid 1:1,250 / 1:2,500 maps of England and Wales, which the Library hopes to put online by the summer of 2024.
- The lists focus on listing one main "edition" for each series, and exclude variant states of these editions. The following exclusions are particularly relevant:
- Early 1st edition Six-Inch quarter sheets, which were published initially as a First Edition Without Contours. (eg. OS Six-Inch Lincolnshire VI.SW, surveyed 1885, published 1886). These sheets generally were published later with contours added but with no other changes.
- 'Railway states' of Six-Inch sheets published before 1868. ( Read further information about Six-Inch 'railway states' ) Other variant states of Six-Inch sheets were sometimes issued for sheets covering towns, county boundaries and military or industrial sites.
- For early 25-inch sheets, these were often issued in various forms: those in parish sets, the isolated early surveys in Lancashire, and coloured / uncoloured editions. Sometimes, NLS may only hold the uncoloured sheets, often issued from the late 1870s. ( Read further information about 25 inch reprinting and colouring )
We are potentially interested in acquiring all these variant states listed above
- The lists have been compiled primarily from later editions of these maps, which refer to earlier editions which we do not have. We have not checked Ordnance Survey Catalogues (eg. Catalogue of the maps and plans and other publications of the Ordnance Survey of England and Wales, 1894), and therefore we may not know that we are missing later editions of County Series maps. The metadata may also reflect the later edition information and infer some information incorrectly, particularly relating to details such as insets and dates.