SABRE Maps

As an aside, all three maps now have every revision ever printed now available on SABRE Maps. Don't forget to use the Map Fader to compare the different editions!

#Map extract from Ordnance Survey OS map at the One Inch scale covering part of Gloucestershire and the original Severn Bridge from 1938

We're adding another small set of OS One Inch Fifth Edition #maps from southern England (and a small part of Wales) to SABRE Maps today, this time three maps from 1938. What can you find on them? #MapMonday

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Screenshot of the SABRE Maps Sheetfinder, used to identify which maps we have of any specific location. Search term of "Manchester", looking at Quarter Inch and 1:250k Ordnance Survey OS maps.

This #MapMonday, using our Sheetfinder, can you discover just how many Quarter Inch and 1:250k scale #maps we have that include Manchester city centre, or for any other location in Great Britain or Ireland?

(the current answer is 43...)

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If you're interested in map and in Belfast tomorrow, this might well be worth attending.

Zoom meeting - an Introduction to the SABRE #Maps Grid Calibrator. Hands on georeferencing maps using our toolsets.

If you weren't able to attend our recent Zoom session showing people how to georeference #maps using our Online Calibrator, then we've got it recorded and now available on our YouTube channel.

Don't forget to look there for other videos!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhO6...

OS map extract from the 1936 One Inch sheet of The Cairngorms, showing the area around Aviemore.

Today for #MapMonday, we're adding three new Tourist sheets to our 1936 Ordnance Survey One Inch Fifth Edition layer. As with all Tourist #maps, they're generally very pretty sheets, but as we're a big fan of the Fifth Edition (and its relatives), we really like these ones. Enjoy! buff.ly/cIf5o6A

IIRC, Dudley Castle is an exclave of Staffordshire, inside Dudley which is an exclave of Worcestershire, inside Staffordshire.

Of course, the admin boundaries have long since been tidied up, but the county boundaries remain.

So do we! And usually more revisions of editions at our relevant scales than the NLS have too - but they have much more large scale (plan) mapping than we do.

And if you want to save your work during the opportunity to try it out, you'll need a SABRE account to do so - just go to the website to sign up.

As a reminder to everyone, this is happening tonight. We hope that if you're interested that you can make it, and if you can't, we'll hopefully be a little quicker with the recording this time!

Map extract from the Ordnance Survey Two Inch Map of the Isles of Scilly, from 1935

For #MapMonday, we're continuing through our "catch-up" of the OS One Inch Fifth Edition additions that we've recently acquired, with a couple of new sheets from 1935 added - one of which isn't a One Inch #map at all, but the Two Inch Map of the Isles of Scilly from that year. buff.ly/P6evyFH

We are always super careful about how we refer to the unbuilt Belfast Urban Motorway...

You can't beat being able to compare different editions of old mapping!

Perhaps our map collection might help confirm? Using one of our historic map layers, such as this 1974 Landranger, and then selecting the Map Fader and picking a modern OpenStreetMap, you can easily compare the two.

www.sabre-roads.org.uk/maps/index.p...

One week today!

Take a look at this offering from our good friends at the NLS - if you're near Edinburgh on Friday, then it's definitely a great place to go!

An Introduction to SABRE Maps YouTube video by SABRE Maps

We've been asked a few times about whether we recorded the recent Zoom session, "An Introduction to SABRE Maps". We have finally worked out how to get the recording out of Zoom, and onto YouTube, so here it is!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=9s1L...

Extract from Ordnance Survey Fifth Edition #map from 1934 showing the area around St. Austell in Cornwall, now available on SABRE Maps.

The OS One Inch Fifth Edition from the 1930s is a very flawed #map series. It changed standards, got called "muddy", changed layouts and only covered the south of England. Yet it's one of our favourites, so another 12 additional sheets from 1934 have gone live on SABRE Maps today. buff.ly/4MsHl9Z

#Map extract from SABRE Maps showing official traffic count data, now available across Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Clicking on the type labels at the bottom will turn them off and on, and it even remembers your preferences

Thanks to our volunteer development team, the Traffic Counts information on SABRE Maps has been hugely improved with more accurate locations, better graphs and data from Northern Ireland too! You can click on each traffic type to diplay, and see just how busy roads really are. buff.ly/XH6mVqm

If you want to save any work that you do during this session, you'll need a SABRE account - so sign up at the site beforehand! Go to Go to the SABRE Maps website at buff.ly/MZtqikI , and click "register" at the top right.

Introduction to the SABRE Maps Grid Calibrator, a hands-on session where you get to learn about georeferencing #maps using our toolsets is happening on Zoom, on Wednesday 11 February 2026 at 7.30pm UK and Ireland time.

Following the success of our introductory Zoom talk on SABRE Maps, we'll be holding a second one around our Grid Calibrator tool, showing how we georeference maps, and how you can help! There will be opportunities to ask questions, and click along! buff.ly/TzVhjsT

And amazingly, that's been there for the last six years - it first appears on the 2020 edition, and it's there ever since!

It is, of course, really the A132.

Ordnance Survey OS map extract from the 2026 OS Miniscale release, showing most of Essex.

After all those maps from 1975, it's #MapMonday and time for the first modern OpenData #map of 2026!

OS Miniscale is smilar to the old Ten Mile or Route Planning maps and therefore great for looking for major changes in GB over time. Can you find the changes from our 2025 layer?

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Extract from SABRE Maps, showing the Map Fader functionality: The Ringways Map and the 1974 1:50,000 layer showing the A13 Relief Road fitting nicely through a gap in the Ford factory in Dagenham, east London.

Thank you to everyone who attended tonight's Zoom session on "An Introduction to SABRE Maps". We hope that you enjoyed it, and that we answered the questions posted fully.

We're looking to hold another session in mid-February, so look out for the announcement!

Map festival | National Library of Scotland Ever wondered what secrets lie in a map? Join us for the Map Festival, a day dedicated to all things cartographic in Edinburgh.

Map Festival: This looks like a great event hosted by the National Library of Scotland @nls map room at Causewayside on February 6th. Full details on their website. #mapfestival #maps #cartography #edinburghevent

Don't forget that this is tomorrow!

Extract from 1975 Ordnance Survey Ireland Half Inch #map showing the T and L roads being replaced by the modern N and R road system.

Did you guess that this set of maps originally published in 1975 would be at the Half Inch scale?

We have three sheets available dotted across Ireland at a fascinating time when the old T and L roads system was being replaced by the modern N and R roads. What will you find?

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Our friends at NLS have also been really busy since 1 January - go and enjoy their new offerings that compliment those that we've been doing.

We know that feeling! We have literally boxes and boxes of maps that are only partially catalogued, let alone scanned, and without a few dedicated volunteers, we wouldn't be able to do as much.

Maybe all of us archives should get together and figure out how we get more volunteers to help?

ICYMI this from yesterday!