Download, explore and view records of 21,950 transcriptions and related information gathered from Ordnance Survey 25 inch to the mile maps of Edinburgh environs (1892-94).


This dataset contains records for 21,950 place names and related information gathered from Ordnance Survey 25 inch to the mile maps of Edinburgh environs (1892-94). Expanded and standardised forms of the transcriptions were created, and they were also categorised. The names were gathered through a crowdsourcing map transcription project between May and June 2022. 

This was a collaborative project between the Alan Turing Institute and the National Library of Scotland, as part of the Machines Reading Maps project.

About the 25 inch mapping

The Ordnance Survey 25 inch maps are a standard topographic authority, depicting practically all human and natural features in the landscape with great accuracy. Every road, railway, field, fence, wall, stream and building is shown. All streets are named, including smaller terraces as well as named tracks and walks. Public buildings are named, including assembly rooms, churches, chapels, halls, hospitals, libraries, museums, post offices, railway stations, and schools. Many industrial and manufacturing premises and shown and named, as well as quarries and mines. There are also many features connected to water supply depicted, including conduits, pumps, drinking fountains and water taps. All public boundaries and administrative boundaries (including civil parish, municipal ward, burgh, and county boundaries) are clearly shown and named. The maps also include detailed numeric information: all land parcels are numbered along with their acreages, and there is detailed height information given in Bench Marks and Surface Levels. This was the earliest coverage of Edinburgh by Ordnance Survey at this scale. Read more about the OS 25 inch Edinburgh mapping

Purpose

The project aimed to transcribe all of the text on the Ordnance Survey’s 25-inch to the mile mapping for Edinburgh environs (1892-94). The primary aim of the project was to provide a detailed gazetteer of streets, buildings and names in Edinburgh from a century ago, to assist local and family historians. A secondary aim was to create an easy search interface of written features on the maps such as baths, drinking fountains, mills, public houses, signal posts, pumps, or wells, viewing the results as geographic distributions on a map. An important related aim has been to provide a test dataset for AI/machine learning approaches to identify text on maps, which are being actively developed. The OS 25 inch maps cover all inhabited areas of England, Scotland and Wales, and we are keen to encourage the wider extraction of text from these maps.

Searching the Edinburgh transcriptions

The Edinburgh transcriptions can be searched using a map interface. This allows a particular street name or keyword string to be queried, and a distribution map of the returned records to be displayed.

It is also possible to view all the textual transcriptions (ie. non-numeric transcriptions) as a browsable list. This shows all of the transcriptions as a single alphabetical sequence.

The Edinburgh transcriptions polygons for central Edinburgh, colour-coded by tag.
Searching and visualising a distribution map of ‘Churches’
Searching and visualising a distribution map of ‘Churches’
Displaying an individual transcription entry for George IV Bridge
Displaying an individual transcription entry for George IV Bridge

Transcriptions Field List 
Raw dataset (Recogito download)
Field nameDescription
uuidThe unique ID for the transcription, generated by Recogito
transcriptionThe text transcription from the map
commentsA comment or expanded form of the transcription – for example, spelling out an abbreviation
tags‘area’, ‘street’, ‘building’, ‘natural’ or ‘other’, using WikiData URLs – see Tags
sourceThe map section that the transcription was from. For performance reasons in Recogito, we split our geographic area into ten separate map layers
anchorPolygon coordinates as lat/lon (EPSG:4326) in Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) format
group_idThe unique ID for grouped transcriptions
group_orderSequential number of the transcription within a particular group_id
Revised dataset (main Gazetteer)
Field nameDescription
uuidThe unique ID for the transcription, generated by Recogito. For items generated from a group of raw transcriptions, this is the Recogito group ID
transcriptionThe text transcription from the map
expanded_transcriptionExpanded or standardised form of the transcription – for example, spelling out an abbreviation
tags‘area’, ‘street’, ‘building’, ‘natural’ or ‘other’ – see Tags
sourceThe map section that the transcription was from. For performance reasons in Recogito, we split our geographic area into ten separate map layers
WKTPolygon coordinates as lat/lon (EPSG:4326) in Well Known Text (WKT) format
NLS_IDThe unique NLS ID in the corrected dataset
areaArea of the transcription polygon in square metres
text‘Y’ to indicate the transcription was a textual one. Blank if numeric
urlLink to the transcription in the Edinburgh transcriptions map viewer
Related links

Explore the Edinburgh transcriptions viewer

Read more about the Tags in the Edinburgh transcriptions


Rights information

This data collection is licensed under a CC-0 license.


Download the data

Edinburgh OS 25 inch transcriptions data

Download the Edinburgh transcriptions dataset as CSV or GeoJSON files.