Ordnance Survey maps

We’ve got four large scale Ordnance Survey maps of Waltham, surveyed in 1887, 1904, 1931 and 1952. Although they only cover some 65 years, it’s interesting to spot the small changes as the village gradually develops and expands from the end of the 19th to the mid 20th century.

The best way to see the changes is to click on the map above to open it in full frame, and then use your keyboard arrow keys to view subsequent maps.

The most obvious difference is the houses which appear along Burgins Lane. But I was surprised to see that there were only four of these as late as 1952.

Most of the Waltham’s expansion seems to have taken place in the last 50 years. So I’ve also included an aerial photograph of the same area today, taken from Google Earth. (Click here to view a ‘then & now’ transition between this photo and the 1887 map.)

You can also expand any of the maps on the right by clicking on them.

These close-ups of Waltham only show a small part of each map. You can download the complete maps as Adobe pdfs by clicking on any of these links:

1887 map : 1904 map : 1931 map : 1952 map