Records can describe how farms and villages have developed into industrial towns and cities, yet all you can witness today are bricks and concrete. A map, however, provides a visual snapshot frozen in time and can better demonstrate the social and economic layout of a community’s hidden past. As importantly, any accompanying schedules, are an indispensable way of identifying what has gone before

Here are a few examples for you to discover a community footprint for your project:

• Enclosure maps and awards – these maps capture changes in the landscape particularly where stripe of agricultural land develop into larger enclosed fields. The award can identify ownership of land and thus providing valuable family information.
• Tithe map and apportionments – colourful large-scale tithe maps show each building, church, pathway and stream and more. The schedule of apportionment gives details of the owner and occupier along with a description of the plot plus the amount of rent-charge. The plot numbers cross reference the numbering of plots on both the map and the apportionment schedule.
• Estate maps and rental schedules– commissioned by landowners to capture the extent of their estate, these wonderful maps contain details of houses, fields and woodlands, often with the names of adjacent landowners. If you’re lucky there may be an accompanying rental schedule giving names of tenants and their land and cottage plus the amount of rent.
• Ordnance survey – historical ordnance survey maps are incredibly useful and suit both rural and urban areas. They are ideal in tracking demolition and development throughout the centuries.
• Fire Insurance Plans and Registers – these town plans were commissioned to identify potential liability in the event of a fire and were updated every few years. Where accompanied by fire registers, personal information can be obtained about the policy holder: name, address and occupation together with details of the construction and value of the property. These are held by the Guildhall Library and the British Library.
• Charles Booth’s Poverty Maps and notebooks – In essence these social class maps are specific for East End communities in London. Together with data collected from police officers on their London beats, Stepney Union casebooks and Jewish notebooks offer a rich insight to life in the 1880s and 1890s. Our image for this blog has been taken from https://booth.lse.ac.uk
• Valuation Office Survey, Valuation and Field Books – these records relate to a survey carried out between 1910-1915 which are useful for identifying property ownership, value, use, tenancy and date of erection by consulting the plan and fields books at the National Archives, Kew (TNA).
• The National Farm Survey and Primary Farm Records – carried out between 1941-1943, these records give more recent information on farmland, farmers and farm workers and are held at TNA. Useful to chat with locals who have living farming memories.
• Alan Godfrey Maps – reprints of old ordnance survey maps comprising more than 3,000 titles so far. Accompanied by a description of the area or a selection from the trade directory. http://www.alangodfreymaps.co.uk

Maps should be used in conjunction with other maps and records such as census, GRO certificates, wills, trade directories, old postcards and title deeds to establish a location and identify family relationships. Discover online maps for convenience, however nothing beats the scale and feel of old hand-drawn cartography. Visit the National Archives, Local Archives, Diocesan Archives and Libraries to find out for yourself.