Capital maps and capital crimes

Before we taste this week’s choice morsels, a reminder about an item from the last edition. In order to get all the free stuff from How To Books (a Key Link under “Advice & help”), be sure to scroll right to the bottom of the home page, and click on the words “Read How To Books Online For Free”. Now, walk back this way.

Find your way to the past

Now, what do you suppose Old London Maps is about? Could it be… oh, you’ve guessed already. Old London Maps is “committed to granting free access to scores of rare maps and images of London from the medieval period to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries”. And they are certainly living up to the commitment.

They have scanned and uploaded maps from the Thirteenth to the Nineteenth Centuries. You can see an overview of each map, and then click for a very high-resolution enlargement. I noticed that there is a prominent copyright notice on the map I looked at: they are giving us the rights to view the scanned maps online, not to reproduce and distribute them, which is fair enough. After all, they’ve gone to a lot of trouble and expense to provide this service. And it doesn’t stop with maps.

There are also articles galore on old London, with some exquisite pictures, as beautifully reproduced as the maps. They have sensibly gone for a Google search box, set up so that you use the power of Google to search this particular site. I love this website, a straightforward idea brought expertly to life. First rate.

(From the Gateway to websites, select “History”. Old London Maps is under “Local history”.)


What did you do in the underworld, Granny?

While we’re in old London, how about a trip down the Old Bailey to watch a juicy murder case? Don’t fancy it? OK, perhaps you’d settle for Proceedings of the Old Bailey is described as “a fully searchable edition of the largest body of texts detailing the lives of non-elite people ever published, containing 197,745 criminal trials held at London's central criminal court.” I like “non-elite”! – a rather nice way of describing the assorted rig raff who passed through the Old Bailey between 1674 and 1913.

Of course, the obvious game to play is “spot the dodgy ancestor”. But be careful – I found murder, wounding, grand larceny and counterfeiting. I’m rather sorry I tried it.

(From the Gateway to websites, select “History”. Proceedings of the Old Bailey is under “Local history”.)