Maps and satellite images online - mostly free
Try using each of these to locate and explore a place, such as your home.
Google maps is simple, widely available (and more than occasionally inaccurate!). It allows you to view a simple street map, or a satellire view, and to drop a marker at street level to see what's there. Most, but not all, streets in the UK can be seen at ground level on google maps.
maps.google.com
maps.google.com
Zoom earth is a higher quality satellite image, zoomable and searchable, but without an underlying street map https://zoom.earth
Bing maps, free from Microsoft. Bing allows you to see Ordnance Survey maps, for free, at two scales. OS maps are invaluable for scoping a location's archaeology as known sites are marked on. They don't mark unknown sites though.... bing.maps.com
Free maps from National Libraries of Scotland
The run of OS maps available extends from the 1840s to the 1930s, which enables a good overview for armchair archaeology.
A slightly awkward site to navigate so here's a starting point http://maps.nls.uk/geo/find/#
The run of OS maps available extends from the 1840s to the 1930s, which enables a good overview for armchair archaeology.
A slightly awkward site to navigate so here's a starting point http://maps.nls.uk/geo/find/#
Old Maps Online, a clearing house of sources all over Europe and America. Mostly large scale http://www.oldmapsonline.org/
From Old Maps online, a 1760 map of Cumberland and Westmorland
http://biblio.unibe.ch/web-apps/maps/zoomify.php?pic=Ryh_1810_38.jpg&col=ryh
http://biblio.unibe.ch/web-apps/maps/zoomify.php?pic=Ryh_1810_38.jpg&col=ryh
Old Maps provides ordnance survey maps from 1840s to 1970s-80s. Only superficial searching is possible without subscribing. https://www.old-maps.co.uk
For Lancashire: Mario Maps and old maps http://mario.lancashire.gov.uk/agsmario/default.aspx
Cumbria Image Bank, a rather hard one to use due to a weird zoom tool, http://www.cumbriaimagebank.org.uk/historicalmaps.php
For Northumberland, maps and much more: https://communities.northumberland.gov.uk
For Northumberland and Durham, Keys to the Past - I found this a little frustrating to use www.keystothepast.info/article/8749/KeysToThePast-Home-Page
British History Online: patchy, but worth knowing about www.british-history.ac.uk/catalogue/maps
Online maps are extremely useful for armchair archaeology. They allow you to explore features, often quite closely. However many more maps exist in local studies collections, and regional archives. They have not been digitised and you would have to go and seek them out to take that further step of discovery.