SABRE Maps

(1/8) So, who are we? We're the largest freely available georeferenced online archive of twentieth century OS maps of Great Britain and Ireland at "road map" scales from 1:25k to 1:625k including One Inch, Half Inch and Quarter Inch mapping. But that's not all! We also have...

Another #MapMonday sees another huge batch of Ordnance Survey GB 1:25,000 mapping added to SABRE Maps - this time it's 463 individual #map sheets dating from 1949; and it includes our first revised sheets in the series for you to play "spot the difference" with. buff.ly/3PxBmu7

Enjoying our Ordnance Survey GB 1:25k First Series releases so far? We hope so, because this #MapMonday brings another 451 individual #map sheets to SABRE Maps, freely available on our website for all to enjoy. buff.ly/kjxNxGd

Back in the olden days you had to keep buying new maps to find out what your town was called this year.

Lots of people seemed to really enjoy last week's #MapMonday addition to SABRE Maps of 158 newly georeferenced 1:25k maps from 1945-6. How to top that? Maybe adding another 339 map sheets from 1947? Freely available to everyone, though we never say no to donations! buff.ly/RkSn0mk

You may have noticed we've been pretty quiet recently - we've been working hard. What have we been up to? Preparing 1:25,000 historic #maps to be added to our already enormous mapping collection, and the first batch of 158 maps has been released pn #MapMonday from 1945-6. Enjoy! buff.ly/l2uXTy6

This #MapMonday, let's take another look at part of SABRE Maps. Today is one of our favourites - Map Fader. Pick a layer that you want to look at, click the "Map Fader" button, and pick a second layer, and compare the two! It works with any #map layers we have, so you can easily see any changes!

Aug 1979: 1:50 000 Maps ad from Ordnance Survey «Is there life beyond the motorways?»

And you can see where the flyover was meant to go on our Ringways map, the most accurate (and indeed only) map of London's unrealised motorway plans of the era. www.sabre-roads.org.uk/maps/index.p...

Another part of SABRE Maps that you might not have used or forgotten about is our Sheetfinder - pick your scale, click on the location and the #maps covering that location at that scale appear in the right hand area. Click on the thumbnail, and it takes you to the map. Easy! buff.ly/f7tZpdc

This #MapMonday we'll leave a reminder of one of the other applications in the SABRE Maps family - the Co-ordinate Finder. Mouse over the map of GB or IRL, and get the location of that point in lots of modern and archaic co-ordinate formats. Perfect for map nerds like us! buff.ly/JraIUl8

I've had reason to open out some of my Ordnance Survey "Old Series" one-inch maps today so here's the first edition 1813 section of Sussex covering Bexhill. @bexhillmuseum.bsky.social

#MapMonday sees more #maps added to SABRE Maps, with three more Half Inch sheets added to our 1968 layer. A few weeks ago we complained about the 1961 Snowdon sheet not being ready for Number Six, well, he was there in 1968, and so is The Village! #ThePrisoner buff.ly/1rC4ClC

It's been a really busy week for us this week, so there's just a single layer been added to SABRE Maps this #MapMonday- half a dozen Half Inch #maps from 1965 covering quite a large part of Ireland. We hope you're enjoying them! buff.ly/OHuqI0E

More OS, OSI and OSNI #maps at the Half Inch scale this week have been added to SABRE Maps, with 15 maps for you to enjoy. Disappointingly, the 1961 map of Snowdonia doesn't appear to consider The Village at Portmerion, soon to welcome Number Six, to be important enough to label. #ThePrisoner

#MapMonday rolls around again, and it's going to be a hot one! So, let's give you some more Ordnance Survey Half Inch #maps from 1958-60, with a set containing both GB and IRL sheets. There's two editions of the Birmingham Half Inch sheet, so what differences can you find? buff.ly/70vRsYG

In this #MapMonday SABRE Maps update, we're bringing more Ordnance Survey Half Inch #maps to life, with sheets published in 1955, 1956 and 1957 across Ireland, adding yet more editions to our already large collection of mapping across the island. buff.ly/t29jfAo

SABRE Maps has the largest collection anywhere of modern Ordnance Survey GB 1:250k #OpenData #maps, all freely available for people to see. And now on #MapMonday the brand new 2026 edition is here for you to enjoy! Try our Map Fader and see what changes from 2025 you can find buff.ly/KY5kHm6

It's World Bicycle Day today, here are two Ordnance Survey map covers from between the wars by OS in-house artist Ellis Martin (more examples of his work below). More free time after WWI led to an increase in walking and cycling maps, often with covers as attractive as these @bodleian.ox.ac.uk

This #MapMonday, we're having a small pause from the Half Inch journey, whilst we realise that in January we completely missed two 1975 Quarter Inch OSI #maps for the southern part of #Ireland. So, we'll go a long way to make it up... buff.ly/4SHJ4vc

Phew! What a scorcher! And what more could we ask to enjoy the warm weather this #MapMonday than to spend some of it in front of some newly uploaded Half Inch #maps of Ireland on SABRE Maps, from between 1948 and 1952. buff.ly/36FVAf4

New on SABRE Maps this #MapMonday? Half Inch #maps from 1939 - covering parts of all of the nations of our islands. Once again, it's amazing how much change there has been since these map was published - the Falls Road really isn't on the edge of Belfast any more for example! buff.ly/Uch0OEX

As a reminder, we have every single edition of every single OS One Inch Seventh Series available to view on SABRE Maps! ...except that one pesky sheet of Doncaster (Revision A/) which we cannot find anywhere, so if anyone has one, or know anywhere that has one, please let us know!

Five more new #maps have been made available on SABRE Maps this #MapMonday at the Half Inch scale from 1936-37. Our favourite is definitely the Peak District district map, featuring those well-known Peak District places like Liverpool, Manchester, Nottingham and North Florida... buff.ly/F4gISgn

Just the one additional sheet to highlight on SABRE Maps this #MapMonday - the 1935 Ordnance Survey Half Inch #Map of Greater London. Taking in a lot more than the modern definition of Greater London, it includes lots of places that look very, very different today... buff.ly/YvH8yy9

Three more Ordnance Survey #map sheets have been added to SABRE Maps for #MapMonday, at the Half Inch scale showing the English Midlands in 1934. The Birmingham District Yard Grid sheet shows just how much the West Midlands conurbation has merged together over the last 90 years! buff.ly/50ZNiZO

Definitely too good to not share. Incidentally, the second temporary terminal as the south end of the Penrith Bypass is caught on SABRE Maps at www.sabre-roads.org.uk/maps/index.p...

Our friends at the NLS bringing yet more mapping to the table. Always good to see!

Happy Easter Monday to all who celebrate it! For this #MapMonday, we're adding three more OS maps at the Half Inch scale, one from 1927 and two from 1928. We particularly like the 1927 London sheet, as it captures the Watford bypass "in course of construction". buff.ly/pOyMfro

A conversation had elsewhere reminded us to point out this #MapMonday that whilst SABRE Maps does focus on #maps of Great Britain and Ireland, that we do have some historic mapping of elsewhere, for example, these lovely US Army maps of Europe from 1959. buff.ly/OWZtNQJ

I'm not sure we've got this sheet online yet. Does anyone have a copy that we can scan and share? 🤣

More plan-scale mapping from our friends at the NLS. Go check these new maps out, they're great!

Archives are neither dusty nor old stuff neither dead nor boring. Archives are what we make of them. Each generation, each of us sees diferent things in an item. Each of us adds something new every time we engage. Each item in the archives is the sum of all these interactions.

#MapMonday is here again! And with it, we bring a whole new #map layer - the Ordnance Survey One Inch Fifth Edition from 1940-41. Yes, civilian mapping continued to be produced well into World War 2, so here are three of those maps for your delectation and delight. buff.ly/B8p5Fcn

Want to go between somewhere to the north of Manchester and somewhere to the south by train in 1986? Your best choice was probably including a walk right the way across Manchester city centre. It's incredible looking back how much the GMPTE rail service at the time was in two halves.

We like this map a lot too - it's not quite geographic, not quite diagrammatic, but somehow it all works nicely. (though we're not old enough to remember it back in the day, no, absolutely not...)