Deep Mapping Estate Archives is an AHRC-funded collaborative project across Welsh universities, archives, and heritage institutions. The project has digitally mapped historical records to the real-world locations they relate to, which allows for in-depth analysis of landscape continuity and change.
This pilot project has been focused on a small area of North East Wales consisting of three parishes in Denbighshire; Llanarmon yn iâl, Llanferres and Llandegla and three adjacent parishes in Flintshire; Treuddyn, Nercwys and Mold (as far as the river Alyn). The project has brought together a wide range of large-scale historical maps to create a free, publicly accessible web map, incorporating OS, Tithe, Enclosure and Estate mapping.
The web map presents digitised scanned images of the original historical maps which have been geographically aligned to the modern map using a process called georeferencing. Each map source has also been 'vectorised'. This means that shapes (polygons) matching the lines drawn on the historical maps have been created digitally, allowing users to click on any landscape feature (field parcel, building, road) to get further information.
This two-year project was a collaboration between the Institute for the Study of Welsh Estates (ISWE) based at Bangor University, Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales (RCAHMW), Aberystwyth University, North East Wales Archives Service (NEWA) and the National Library of Wales (NLW). The project started in May 2020 and was completed in December 2022.
The main emphasis of the project was to bring together a range of different historical mapping into a publicly accessible web map environment. This allows for the analysis and interrogation of these sources, especially within the context of landscape change. To achieve this, a methodology of five main strands was developed:
- Sourcing - The process of finding relevant material related to the project area within archive repositories and national institutions.
- Digitisation - The process of taking a physical item and scanning it to create a digital copy. All the maps used in this project were scanned by NLW.
- Georeferencing - The process of taking a digitised map and adding geographic information to the image to locate it on a modern map. 'Control points' are created on features that exist on both the historical and modern map, for example the intersection of a field boundaries or the corners of an old building. A greater number of control points will improve the accuracy of the map. Mathematical algorithms known as transformations can be used to slightly stretch and warp the historic map to give it the best topographical fit to modern mapping.
- Vectorisation - The process of creating digital spatial data from an image. There are two parts to vector data:- the visual spatial element which depicts a feature (i.e., building, field parcel, road), and the information which sits behind that data. This means that information about each individual feature can be recorded an underlying database, allowing for information about that specific feature to be accessed at the click of a button.
- Access - The process of uploading the material so that it is accessible to a wide audience in the form of a web map.
The project was developed by Dr. Shaun Evans, Dr. Julie Mathias, Scott Lloyd and Jon Dollery.
