Maps and architecture
Maps
Liverpool Record Office has a large collection of all types of maps and plans of Liverpool and the surrounding area.
Architecture
We have an extensive collection of architects' drawings, building plans and other illustrations of some of the significant buildings including St George’s Hall, cinemas, offices, churches, schools, workhouses, early council tenements, railway stations and warehouses. To find out more, please contact the Liverpool Record Office.
Ordnance Survey maps
Liverpool Record Office is licensed to provide copies and extracts from recent editions of Ordnance Survey maps nationwide for planning applications, boundary disputes, genealogy and local history. Various scales can be supplied including A4 1:1250 as required for planning applications. You can purchase them in person from Liverpool Record Office on the 3rd floor of Central Library.
Pop in to see us or contact us for more information, including charges.
Liverpool street maps
This collection of c.500 maps includes a wide range of dates, sizes and scales, but they all cover the city of Liverpool at any given date.
Don’t forget that Liverpool has grown enormously over the years and the whole of the built-up area in, say 1800, would just cover a small portion of today’s city centre. These maps range in date from speculative sketch maps of the fourteenth century to modern A – Z’s. The first properly surveyed map of the city was produced in 1725 by Chadwick.
Maps in the collection include:
- 1768 Yates and Perry, this covers as far as Woolton and Croxteth Hall.
- 1803 Horwood, a large scale map, individual houses are shown, with their street numbers.
- 1835 Bennison, a finely engraved large scale map, covering as far as Walton and Woolton and showing the names of property owners.
- 1865 Mortality map of typhus.
- Gore’s/Kelly’s Directories. Many street directories included folded maps of the city. These have been removed and are available separately.
- 1962 to date maps regularly updated showing ward boundaries.
A self service selection of facsimile street maps of Liverpool and large scale Ordnance Survey maps is now available.
Liverpool districts and streets
Our collection includes maps of specific areas of Liverpool, such as Childwall and Everton, as well as some plans of particular streets including:
- A copy of the Enclosure award for Much Woolton, dated 1613.
- Tithe Maps (copies of the originals in the Lancashire Record Office). These maps of land ownership were drawn up in this area in the 1840s. They determined the taxes due, when the payment of tithes to local clergy was abolished. They consist of a map and a schedule, which shows who owned and who rented the land and what it was used for. They cover most areas, except the city centre, for example Everton, Wavertree.
- Estate plans, such as the Molyneux Muniments of 1769 – 90, are copies of the originals in the Lancashire Record Office and include such areas as Croxteth, Fazakerley, Toxteth Park and West Derby.
- Ordnance Survey maps at scale 10 ft = 1 mile of Garston dated 1855 and West Derby dated 1863.
- Town Planning maps of, for example, Speke, 1936, and Toxteth, 1966.
- Other maps in this category include a German military map of West Derby during World War II, and a plan of James Okill’s land in Little Woolton in 1752, showing field names and land areas.
- Maps of specific streets include a set of 6 maps showing the development of Old Haymarket and a sale plan of Kensington Fields in 1888 showing the different lots offered for sale.