English Heritage launches Britain From Above website
The Britain From Above project started in 2011 and is a four year project aimed at conserving 95,000 of the oldest and most valuable photographs in the Aerofilms collection, dating from 1919 to 1953. With the support of the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Foyle Foundation, English Heritage and the Royal Commissions in Scotland and Wales embarked on a programme to conserve, catalogue and digitise the collection and make it freely available online.
Today marks the launch of the new Britain from Above website, thousands of photographs have been made available, with many of the images illustrating the dramatically changing face of Britain in the first half of the 20th century. The website allows you to not only view the collections but also gives you the opportunity to share and record your memories of the places shown and also help identify the locations and buildings featured in the images.
The number of images available to view on the website will continue to grow but in the meantime why not take a look at the images of Birmingham.
The Town Hall and Council House on Victoria Square, Birmingham, 1921
I’ ve been working for the past few months as a conservation assistant on the English Heritage Britain from Above project, and thoroughly enjoying it. There are now – as of February 2013 – over 25,000 images on the web site. It’s fascinating going through the years and all the associated events, industries and developments while cleaning and conserving the negatives. We have to develop a ‘negative vision’ to make sense of what we’re seeing until such time as the team digitisers have done their work. The site is proving hugely popular.
Thanks David. Good to hear from you and for the update!, Suzanne