The Hidden Glasgow Forums

Thanks to a slow server at work I have uncovered a chink in the old-maps.co.uk site that allows you to zoom into the 1:2500 maps. It is a bit long winded but here is what you do.
1) Select the map that you want to use.
2) Click on "view source" on your browser and scroll down until you see a list of layers, it will be in the form:
{year:"1901", layer:"100524", county:"PERTHSHIRE", scale:"1:10,560", east:"288900.0", north:"693300.0"}
Take a note of the layer number, east and north numbers of the map that you want to see
3) In you browser bar enter http:\\www. then the following:
old-maps.co.uk/maptiles/m100524_288800.0_693100.0_0500.png, where the number immediately after the m is the layer number that you see in the source code and the next two numbers are the east and north numbers that you also see in the source code. the last four digit number is the magnification, 2000 is the standard for the site, I find 0500 gives as much detail as I need.

Give it a go and let me know how you get on with it.

I tried it and followed your guide accurately but found though it worked it only magnified a small part of a map.

That said I'll play with it again and see if anything improves.

That is a drawback, but if you play with the coordinates you can build up a mosaic of the area that you are interested in. It is better than nothing.

Apologies if this is old news, but I recently discovered a lovely new (to me at) toy on the National Library of Scotland maps website (top menu here).

Click the 'Series maps' link, then (for example) the 'town plans' link at the bottom, then on the next screen click the second Browse option - 'As full screen overlays', then you can choose which town (Glasgow has a choice of 1857/8 or 1892/4) and then you get the old map over a Google or Bing view and a control box to switch the old map on or off and change the underlay. And you can scroll wherever you want, across the old map edges

I've got a memory of finding a control to make the old map overlay more or less transparent, but maybe I dreamed that part.

Thanks for that. I've just spent half an hour looking at my part of East Kilbride in 1905. There must have been a cottage on the corner just past the bus shelter which obviously isn't there now. That's the only thing that's marked on there. Otherwise there's just the road that goes from East Kilbride village to Long Calderwood. Finally found where the old railway line went and it looks like it crossed where the Kingsway is now, through Frankie and Bennie's by the Lee Burn.

That is wonderful - just need to work out how to get it into Google Earth to play with the data now

It's all change again on old maps.co.uk, and my dodge is no longer required as they are now permitting enlargement on 1:2500 maps, there is also a much improved search function using present day O.S. maps as the base, worth having a look.

Now THAT I'm happy with - it will come in well handy for work

They must have changed that in the last 24 hours or so as I was on the site yesterday or the day before and it was the same old same old.

They've improved the old maps site further still.

You now use an 'Enhanced Zoom' option (with the 1:2500 and 1:10560 maps), which opens up a different type of view. This option has an incredible zoom capability (e.g. you can zoom in to the extent that you can only see the O & R of 'GEORGE SQUARE') and the image quality retains its sharpness even at levels approaching maximum zoom. The panning functionality has also been greatly improved and you can now have the choice of drag & drop or using directional buttons.

When using the Enhanced Zoom option you can improve things even further by choosing to go to Full Screen View so you can see a larger area of the map.

Steve is a happy lad

Thanks for that Steve. I'd never have known about the improvement because I long ago chucked looking in to that site.

Further improvements on the site when I went in today, they have addded more maps from the 1950s and 1960s, plus some interesting Russian Military Maps of the target Cities (Glasgow of course). Looking good

Thanks Alycidon, that site has really come on leaps and bounds, it's got to be one of the best historic mapping sites around, I only wish you could view the maps full screen.

cell wrote:Thanks Alycidon, that site has really come on leaps and bounds, it's got to be one of the best historic mapping sites around, I only wish you could view the maps full screen.

You can view the maps full screen ...

Glesga_Steve wrote:They've improved the old maps site further still.

You now use an 'Enhanced Zoom' option (with the 1:2500 and 1:10560 maps), which opens up a different type of view. This option has an incredible zoom capability (e.g. you can zoom in to the extent that you can only see the O & R of 'GEORGE SQUARE') and the image quality retains its sharpness even at levels approaching maximum zoom. The panning functionality has also been greatly improved and you can now have the choice of drag & drop or using directional buttons.

When using the Enhanced Zoom option you can improve things even further by choosing to go to Full Screen View so you can see a larger area of the map.

... unless something has changed since I was last on the site a few days ago.

Thanks GS, just found the magic button, that will keep me quite for days!

Now if only we had OS grid reference read out at the cursor location?

A mention in the Scotsman.

http://news.scotsman.com/glasgow/Psst-w ... 6559971.jp