Ancient Roam homepage
Ancient Roam is an online mapping facility which is part of the Historic Digimap Collection. Ancient Roam provides fixed-scale map views of a wide range of Ordnance Survey historical maps dating from 1840s – 1990s.
The EDINA Historic Digimap map collection contains historical maps from Landmark Information Group Ltd. Different series and editions cover different areas of Great Britain. You can download image data for use in other software packages, such as drawing software, GIS and CAD.
Ancient Roam is available to all users at institutions that subscribe to Historic Digimap. No registration is required. Login at edina.ac.uk/digimap and select the Historic Digimap Collection.
Web Browser:
To start, click the Ancient Roam icon on the Historic Digimap homepage. You can view a map either by searching for a specific location or using the navigation tools to zoom and reposition the map.
Ancient Roam offers the standard features found in the Digimap Roam suite of clients, including:
Ancient Roam homepage
Timeline
Ancient Roam’s Timeline displays the availability of historical maps at any location and scale. Decades with available maps are highlighted in blue. Simply click on a decade to view historical maps. The Timeline updates as users pan and zoom to new areas. Note that not all dates are available for all areas.
Overlapping County Selection
The Overlapping County Selection tool alerts users when overlapping county sheets are detected and allows users to choose which county to view. When the Overlapping County Selection tab is highlighted in red, click to expand and select which county to view by clicking on the county name or outline.
2-up View
The 2-up View allows users to compare historical maps of the same location from different decades. Click the 2-up View icon to load the current map into the 2-up View and then select which decades to view from the two Timelines in order to compare maps.
The overview map in the left hand panel shows the current location at a smaller scale for context. Dragging the red dotted outlined box pans the main map to a new location.
Historical maps can be exported to a .PNG image which can be saved, printed or inserted into coursework document. Click the Save Image icon to generate an image of your map, and then use your browser options to save the image file to your computer.
Map Details
Details about the historical maps such as the map edition and year published can be viewed by clicking once on any historical map.
Ancient Roam delivers a wide range of historical Ordnance Survey maps to view online. The service includes the following maps:
NB: Small scale contemporary mapping data is used to provide geographic context.
Comprehensive help and support about the service and the maps are available from the help pages and the EDINA helpdesk. Hints & Tips can be found in the right-hand panel of Ancient Roam.
The maps and data available through Historic Digimap are the property of Landmark Information Group Limited and are protected by copyright. The licence allows you to use maps and data from Historic Digimap in academic research and teaching. Restrictions on what you can do with the maps and data are detailed on the Historic Digimap website. It is your responsibility to ensure that you do not breach these terms; appropriate action may be taken if you do.
Last updated: October 2010