Over the last couple of years, we've occasionally had the opportunity to replace some of our map scans with newer ones. One example was the recent updating of some of our Scottish maps with newer 7th Editon ones.

Generally this works well for everyone - the newer maps are generally a little cleaner and clearer, and have more recent features on them, aiding the location of postcodes.

However, not everyone is only interested in the latest out of copyright maps we have available. Sometimes, it's nice to be able to view a map from a given date, even if that isn't the latest. With this in mind, we've added a new feature to the site. It's now possible to Browse Maps by Decade.

So, if our latest map happens to be from the late 1950s, and you want to see how things looked before some building work which happened in the early 1950s, provided we have an earlier map, you now can! Simply head to http://www.npemap.org.uk/pickDecade.html and click on your area of interest on the decade of your choice.

At this time we have almost complete 1940s coverage, a bit over a quarter of the 1950s maps, and a smattering of 1920s and 1930s maps. However, we would love to be able to fill in the missing gaps. So, if you have access to flat (never folded) ordnance survey maps from a decade where we're missing that area, we'd love to hear from you! Also, if you are able to scan in folded ordnance survey maps for a decade+area combination area that we lack, again do please get in touch.

Otherwise, we hope you enjoy seeing how things have changed, and we look forward to being able to add the first 1960s maps in January, once the Ordance Survey maps published during 1960 come out of copyright on the 1st of January 2011.

We're pleased to announce that we've recently teamed up with the OpenStreetMap 7th Edition Maps project, who are also aiming to put out-of-copyright OS maps online.

As part of this, we've been able to update around 30 of our Scottish maps with newer versions, generally replacing mid 1940s maps with late 1950s ones. Because these maps were all scanned from flat original maps, rather than folded as many of ours are, they scans are generally also a little bit clearer, and a bit better aligned. Being newer, it should hopefully be easier to find the locations of postcodes!

We've also sent over copies of our 7th Edition map scans to the OSM project, who are in the process of re-projecting them into WGS84 (the original maps use the British National Grid, as do we). They will shortly be available for OpenStreetMap users to trace features from, much as our 1940s maps have been for some time.

The next batch of 7th Editon maps leave copyright in January, so we hope to both be able to show off some more scans then!