This is fantastic. I knew nothing about it, and I’m a huge fan of the NLS site. Not the transparency slider at the bottom of the control menu box on the left. Click for a larger version. Cheers to Bill Bishop for sharing a lovely thing.

Reader Bill Bishop has written to me to share something wonderful, which I just have to quickly show blog readers, as I know most of you love perusing old maps just like I do.

Bill has found part of the wonderful National Library of Scotland (NLS) Archive where one can overlay quite a few maps over current Google Earth imagery and adjust transparency, forming an endless, tuneable overlay.

This is something that’s going to  make my life a whole bunch easier – I had no idea it existed and my thanks to Bill for spotting and sharing it.

I’ve loved the NLS site for years, and gradually, they’ve been making a huge amount of historic mapping available for free. It’s a great project. See also the historic mapping browser here.

Bill wrote:

Hi Bob,

I’ve seen loads of posts about now and then maps… there is finally a site where you can compare then and now maps.

It has a few old Ordnance Survey maps that overlay google maps and the overlays are quite accurate. For example, I chose the map overlay O/S six inch 1888 – 1913 over brownhills then moved the transparency slider of the overlay to show the Google map and well the rest will explain itself.

There are a few O/S maps to choose from…

I’m sure if youve not already seen this site you will enjoy it, I’ve lost many hours enjoying it.

http://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore

Best regards
Bill Bishop
Brownhills

As I say, my thanks to Bill and if you find anything interesting, please share it with readers – either comment here, or mail me: BrownhillsBob at Goopglemail dot com.

It’s also a great way to explore some gorgeous historical mapping. Image from the National Library of Scotland.