Guide to Old Ordnance Survey Maps

The following page provides information about historic Ordnance Survey maps of the Huddersfield area, many of which are available to view freely on the National Library of Scotland's (NLS) web site.

Clicking on the rectangles marked on the maps below will show you the name of the relevant O.S. map sheet.

When viewing a page on Huddersfield Exposed that contains a location, you can click on the "Details & Links" tab to find handy direct links to the relevant map sheets on the NLS web site:

Locations NLSmaps.png

First Series

The first maps of the area to be publisher by the O.S. are usually referred to as the First Series, with each individual county covered by a series of numbered sheets.

The O.S. surveyors conducted their interior survey of the local area in the late 1840s and the First Series maps were published between 1854 and 1855. Each sheet covers an area of approximately 24 square miles (62kmĀ²).

The following table provides links to the available sheets on the NLS web site.

Yorkshire 231 Yorkshire 232
Yorkshire 245 Yorkshire 246 Yorkshire 247
Yorkshire 259 Yorkshire 260 Yorkshire 261
Yorkshire 271 Yorkshire 272 Yorkshire 273
Yorkshire 280 Yorkshire 281

6 Inch Series

Once the O.S. surveyors had completed their arduous task of producing the First Series maps for the entire country, they began surveying again for the first revision (sometimes referred to as the Second Series).

The areas covered by each First Series map was subdivided in four quadrants (northwest, northeast, southwest and southeast), with the map numbering changed to Roman numerals. For example, the Yorkshire 246 map (which covered the centre of Huddersfield) was divided into:

CCXLVI N.W. CCXLVI N.E.
CCXLVI S.W. CCXLVI S.E.

The Huddersfield area was resurveyed in the late 1880s and early 1890s, with newly revised maps published from 1893 onwards. Subsequent revisions were undertaken circa 1904, 1929, 1938 and 1948 to provide updated 6 Inch maps.

A separate clickable map which provides links to all of the available 6 Inch maps is also available.

An index of the available 6 Inch maps for the whole of Yorkshire is available on the NLS web site, together with a clickable map.

25 Inch Series

Published at the same time as the revised 6 Inch Series, the 25 Inch Series adopted the same Roman numeral numbering but subdivided the area covered by the correspondent First Series map into sixteen smaller areas which are numbered as follows:

1 2 3 4
5 6 7 8
9 10 11 12
13 14 15 16

Therefore, the CCXLVI S.E. 6 Inch map which covers the centre of Huddersfield is subdivided into the four 25 Inch sheets CCXLVI 11, CCXLVI 12, CCXLVI 15 and CCXLVI 16.

The complete list of available 25 Inch sheets for the country of Yorkshire can be found on the NLS web site, along with a clickable map.