I agree wholeheartedly with the sentiments expressed by John Manley
concerning the 'Old Maps' website. Having looked at the alternative
offerings on the British History site, the problem appears to be that,
although the maps there are "zoomable" one cannot download the whole sheet,
as was the case previously. In the latter, the complete sheet could be
downloaded, and then, using editing software such as Photoshop, converted
into a grey scale image for ease of legibility. Like Kelvin Green, I also
downloaded many sheets of mining areas (although not thousands!) and
archived these onto DVD; sadly I wish I had now done more.
One would have logically thought that, in this day and age, when vast sums
of public funds are wasted on, for example, useless quangos, such a useful
resource would have escaped the attentions of the 'revenue raisers', however
we now have another example of a national asset being turned into a
worthless revenue raising gimmick, which does little to ameliorate one's
growing cynicism.
Dickie Bird.
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