Bluesky Archive Boosted by 200k Aerial Photographs

02 June 2010, 1:39pm

Bluesky’s online collection of historically important aerial photographs has been boosted with the addition of approximately 200,000 more unique images. Dating back to the 1960’s the archive covers several county areas together with major engineering projects from this time including road construction, railway maintenance and mineral extraction. The addition of these images to www.oldaerialphotos.com has been made possible following an agreement between Bluesky and Cartographic Services Limited.

The newly acquired collection of photographic images includes many county aerial surveys including Avon, Somerset and Shropshire together with Greater Manchester, South Yorkshire and the West Midlands and even the Channel Island of Guernsey. In addition to these Local Government administrative areas the collection also covers a wide range of construction and engineering projects from the 1960’s onwards including parts of the M4 Motorway, M5 Exeter Bypass, Drax Power Station, the Channel Tunnel Project and many waste sites.

“Cartographical Surveys Limited have been acquiring aerial photography for nearly 50 years now, originally with our own aircraft,” commented Stuart McKendrick, Managing Director of Cartographical Surveys. “We are delighted that this valuable and historic archive has now been made available to the public through our partnership with Bluesky.”

“This is an important agreement for OldAerialPhotos as it dramatically increases the number of images we can offer from a period when significant investment in infrastructure took place, “ commented James Eddy, Technical Director of Bluesky. “Being able to offer views of a site before, during and after construction can be extremely useful for the ongoing management of the site and surrounding environment.”

Visitors to www.oldaerialphotos.com can already search through more than a million aerial photos dating back as far as 1917 by simply entering a postcode, address or grid reference. Detailed search results, including the age and ground coverage, of every image that matches the search criteria are displayed and the visitor can choose to purchase either a hard copy print or digital image file.

Photos that are available to purchase from www.oldaerialphotos.com include some of the earliest commercial aerial survey images, military photography from World War II and many national archives. Offering a record of most major UK cities and towns, transport and utility infrastructure and commercial property developments, the images are an invaluable resource for anyone with a personal or professional interest in local studies, genealogy, boundary disputes, environmental land use research or town planning.

PHOTOGRAPHS: Black and white photograph, copyright Cartographical Services, shows the UK’s Birmingham Airport in 1977. This is the original passenger terminal which has since become the air cargo terminal as shown in the attached 2008 image.

Websites: www.bluesky-world.com, www.oldaerialphotos.com
Enquiries to Bluesky sales on +44 (0)1530 518 518

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