OpenHistoricalMap/Projects/Derby

This page intends to detail the efforts to map Derby, England in OpenHistoricalMap, and outline some of the resources available to mappers.

Everyone is welcome to get involved to help develop the map! Please see the main Open Historical Map wiki pages for details of how to get started mapping, in particular take a look at Open Historical Map/OHM Basics page.

Mapping

So far mapper 'Paul The Archivist' has started mapping Derby. It is far from complete, many of the roads and other important features are still missing. In particular few of the suburban roads and more recent (20th-21st century) changes to the road network are mapped yet.

The highly detailed large scale (1:500) Ordnance Survey published in 1883 is useful as a base map for central Derby and the older parts of the inner city. The National Library of Scotland have made it available for tracing with in OpenHistoricalMap (and OpenStreetMap). The link for using this in map editors such as JOSM or ID is tms:https://geo.nls.uk/mapdata3/os/town_england/Midlands_West/{z}/{x}/{y}.png. For areas not covered by this map, the 25-inch maps and 1:10560 maps are particularly useful.

As the 1883 map has been used as a base map, there are some details shown in the map https://www.openhistoricalmap.org/#map=15/52.9186/-1.4749&layers=O&date=1883&daterange=1800,2022 for this date that are not yet shown for earlier or later years as the start and end dates have not been yet identified.

Tagging

These are just a few suggestions for tagging the features you're mapping in Derby in OpenHistoricalMap. Please also refer to the tagging guidance elsewhere in the OHM pages on the Wiki. Please add any further suggestions you have!

• Please always try to ensure there is a start_date tag on everything you add, so that we don't have for example motorways and railway lines appearing on the map in Roman times! Also please always try and add an end_date if the feature no longer exists.
• Currently the renderer only recognizes dates in the format yyyy or yyyy-mm-dd so these must be used in start_date and end_date. Often however you will only know an approximate date and it is important to record this uncertainty using a start_date:edtf or end_date:edtf tag.
• When exact dates are not known it's probably best to take a conservative approach to setting the start and end dates - use what seems to be the latest possible date for start_date and and earliest possible date for end_date.
• Names of streets etc have often changed over the years, and the map should try to represent these changes.
  • A couple of different options have been proposed for mapping such changes. A simple option is to use an overlapping way with the older name tag set on one way, with the end_date set as when it changed to the new name. For the new name create a new way using the same nodes with the start_date set as when the road changed to the new name. Another method is to use a relation, but this may not yet render on the map.
  • It can be difficult to determine exactly when that name has changed - one possible idea as a temporary workaround until the date of the change is identified is to put both names in the name tag separated by a semicolon.
  • Before the 19th century however spellings of road names and other features were often not standardized in the way they are today so different sources of a similar date may have different spellings. It may be best to tag these variations in spelling with an alt_name tag instead.

Resources available

Here are some of the resources available for mapping Derby and surrounding areas of Derbyshire.

Maps

• 1610 John Speed map - available on Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:John_Speed_-_Map_of_Derbyshire_-_1610_-_001.jpg. A county map but including an inset with a (the earliest?) street map of Derby. The map also shows the rest of Derbyshire, but like many of the early county maps it shows the place names but not the roads, so is of relatively limited use.
• 1767 Derbyshire map by Peter Perez Burdett - available on the National Library of Scotland website under a CC-BY licence at https://maps.nls.uk/joins/10424.html. Includes an inset with a street map of Derby, and is also useful for mapping surrounding rural areas (perhaps the earliest county map to include roads?).
• 1806 Derby map by E.W. Brayley in 'The History of Derby' by William Hutton (though originally for book 'The Beauties of England & Wales'). Out of copyright and digitized by British Library - available https://www.flickr.com/photos/britishlibrary/11003514316/.
• 1806 Derby map in 'Magna Britannia'. Out-of-copyright and digitized by British Library - available https://www.flickr.com/photos/britishlibrary/11000496883. Very similar to Brayley map above.
• 1822 Ordnance Survey drawing for the Derby area (1:31680), and similar maps for surrounding areas - useful as an early map surveyed to a high standard and to see rural areas (and future suburbs which were still rural then) surrounding Derby which are not included in the town maps. This and other OS drawings have been digitized by the British Library, although unfortunately the Derby one is only available at a low resolution (but just about good enough to see the roads and place names etc). The maps are available on Wikimedia Commons and on British Library Georeferencer - Derby area 1822: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ordnance_Survey_Drawings_-_Derby_(OSD_296).jpg, Tutbury area 1828 (includes Mickleover and parts of the west of Derby): https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ordnance_Survey_Drawings_-_Tutbury_(OSD_325).jpg, Belper area 1837 (includes Allestree) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ordnance_Survey_Drawings_-_Belper_(OSD_349).jpg
• 1835 'New Map of the Borough of Derby' by I.T. Swanswick (published in 'The History of the Borough of Derby' by Stephen Glover). Out-of-copyright and digitized by British Library - available https://www.flickr.com/photos/britishlibrary/11020349365/.
• 1836 Ordnance Survey old series map for Derby and Nottingham area (1:63360) - available on Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:OS_old_series_1_63360_71.jpg. Like the OS drawings on which it was based, while it is relatively small scale (so doesn't show street names etc) it is an early high quality map covering areas which do not feature on town plans.
• 1850s Board of Health map - out-of-copyright, but unfortunately doesn't appear to be available online. I think this is the earliest large scale map of Derby and it is very detailed. The Derbyshire Archaeological Society has published a reprint of the map (only available as a physical copy I think - I ('Paul The Archivist') have a copy, and can check details on it by request).
• 1882-1896 Ordnance Survey 'First Series' maps of Derbyshire (1:10560) - available on Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Gallery:Ordnance_Survey_1st_series_1:10560,_Map_of_Derbyshire. Probably mainly of use for areas not covered by the 1883 town plan or 25 inch maps.
• 1883 (surveyed 1881-2) Ordnance Survey 1:500 town plan - available on the National Library of Scotland website under a CC-BY licence. This can be added into map editors with the link tms:https://geo.nls.uk/mapdata3/os/town_england/Midlands_West/{z}/{x}/{y}.png or can be viewed online at https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=16&lat=52.92377&lon=-1.48088&layers=117746211&b=1. This link also works for town plans of various other nearby towns which the NLS has digitized.
• Various dates circa 1882 to 1942 Ordnance Survey '25-inch' 1:2500 maps - available on the National Library of Scotland website (CC-BY licence) at https://maps.nls.uk/os/25inch-england-and-wales/. The dates vary, these are much more extensive than the town plans covering both rural and urban areas around Derby and elsewhere. Tiles for use in the map editors can be found at tms:https://mapseries-tilesets.s3.amazonaws.com/25_inch/Shrop_Derby/{z}/{x}/{y}.png but these only cover one edition of the map for any particular area - for other years the individual map sheets can be found on the NLS website.
• 1947 Ordnance Survey adminstrative areas 1:25,000 map - available on the National Library of Scotland website (CC-BY licence) - Derby area https://maps.nls.uk/view/196757945.
• 1940s-1960s (Derby area sheets published 1955 or 1956) Ordnance Survey 1:10,560 map - available on the National Library of Scotland website (CC-BY licence) - https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=15&lat=52.92258&lon=-1.47673&layers=193&b=1. At the moment these seem to be the best maps for the mid 20th century which are available online - there are very detailed large scale 1:1250 OS maps for around this date (which can be seen at Derby Local Studies Library and probably elsewhere eg the British Library), but these don't appear to be available online for the Derby area at the moment.
• 1962 Ordnance Survey (1:63360) Seventh Series map - available on Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ordnance_Survey_One-Inch_Sheet_121_Derby_%26_Leicester,_Published_1962_2.jpg (major roads revised 1965 version) or https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ordnance_Survey_One-Inch_Sheet_121_Derby_%26_Leicester,_Published_1962.jpg (major roads revised 1971 version).
• Ordnance Survey OpenData maps - for current map data.

Note: except for the OpenData maps, Ordnance Survey maps which are less than 50 years old cannot be used as they are copyrighted under 'Crown Copyright'. As Crown Copyright in maps expires after 50 years they may be freely used after that time (though the terms and conditions for digitized copies online must be checked, in case these prevent usage).

Books

There are many books on the history of Derby, although very few are available online. Books must be used in accordance with copyright laws, which means that any maps, descriptions and images in them etc cannot be copied if they are in copyright. Printed books can however be used for research purposes to derive basic facts such as start and end dates as such facts are not copyrightable.

The list below is very incomplete, there are many more!

General

• An Illustrated History of Derby by Maxwell Craven (2007, and an earlier 1980s edition Derby: An Illustrated History)
• The Illustrated History of Derby Suburbs by Maxwell Craven (1996)
• Street by Street: Derby by Maxwell Craven (2005). A useful source of start and end dates for streets on the inside of Derby ring road.

Older history books

• The History of the Borough of Derby by Stephen Glover (1843)
• The History of the County of Derby by Stephen Glover (1829) vol 2 (pages 369 to 616 for Derby). Available on Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_nqNCAAAAYAAJ

Specific areas

• The Story of Normanton by Normanton-by-Derby Local History Group (1993)

Topics

• Derby and the Midland Railway by P. Billson
• The Derby Townhouse by Maxwell Craven
• Derby Trams and Buses by Alan G. Doig and Maxwell Craven
• Illustrated History of Derby Pubs (check title, it's something like this) by Maxwell Craven
• Rail Centres Derby by Brian Radford
• The Story of Transport in Derby by Barry Edwards

Photo books

• Keene's Derby
• Memory Lane Derby
• Winter's Derby
• Winter's Derby volume 2

Other resources

Archives and local studies libraries

These have more resources than anywhere else including huge amounts of information which is not available online.

• Derby Local Studies Library
• Derbyshire Record Office

Archival records

Very few archive documents are available online. Derbyshire Record Office (in Matlock) is the main archive repository for Derby, but Derby Local Studies Library also holds many archival records.

• Domesday Book - useful for identifying whether places (villages etc) existed in 1086 and the name at that time.

Newspapers and periodicals

• Derbyshire Archaeological Journal. Available at https://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/library/browse/series.xhtml?recordId=1000242
• Derbyshire Miscellany (Derbyshire Archaeological Society's local history journal). Available on the Derbyshire Archaeological Society website https://www.derbyshireas.org.uk/publications/miscellany/
• Derby Mercury newspaper
• Derby Evening Telegraph newspaper

Websites

• Wikipedia
• Historic England listed buildings data - this is also linked to via Wikidata. Useful source of start dates for buildings.