Online seminar: Cataloguing the estate plans of Scotland: a project to list and record the pre-Ordnance Survey paper landscape

Our December seminar will take place via zoom on Friday 9 May 2025 at 19:30 UK time when John Moore will present ‘Cataloguing the estate plans of Scotland: a project to list and record the pre-Ordnance Survey paper landscape’.

Maps provide an immediate and comprehensible picture of past landscapes. For many local historians in a variety of disciplines, estate plans provide greater detail of place-names, ownership, locations and, on occasion, tenants’ names. However, despite the greater availability of digital images on several websites, the researcher is faced with a confused, variable and somewhat fragmented record of what has survived. This project sprang from a perceived need to update the standard Dictionary of Land Surveyors and Local Mapmakers when I realised that any revision needed to be based on what has survived. It soon became apparent that there is a far greater complexity and extent of surviving plans than has been accepted. This presentation will describe the project, provide details of what the listing aims to achieve and notes several of the problems faced in producing such a list. 

John Moore is a retired academic librarian who worked at Glasgow University Library for forty years. He has researched and written widely on the history of Scottish cartography. A member of the Steering Group of the Scottish Maps Forum, he has written two major books on the mapping of Glasgow and the River Clyde.

The seminar will be given on Zoom.

Attendance at the seminar is free to members of the Friends. Non-members are asked to make a £10 donation to the Friends at Donate to Friends of the Argyll Papers (enthuse.com).

All attendees should book their place by emailing Alison at: friendsoftheargyllpapers@gmail.com

Online, Argyll Estates Archives, Inveraray, PA32 8XE,