RCAHMS Shows You ‘Britain From Above’
25 June 2012
More than 16,000 images from one of the earliest and most significant collections of aerial photography of the UK have been made freely accessible online to the public for the first time.
Britain from Above, a new website (www.britainfromabove.org.uk) launched today – 25 June 2012 – by RCAHMS, English Heritage and the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales, features some of the oldest and most valuable images of the Aerofilms Collection, a unique and important archive of over 1 million aerial photographs taken between 1919 and 2006.
The Aerofilms Collection embodies all that is exciting about aerial photography. Many shots were taken in the early days of aviation by ex-First World War pilots, from extremely low altitudes, a technique which was very dangerous. It shows just how far their pilots were willing to go for a great photograph.
The photographs featuring on the website date from 1919 to 1953, and have gone through a painstaking process of conservation and cataloguing. Due to their age and fragility, many of the earliest plate glass negatives were close to being lost forever.
Highlights from the collection include:
- Crowds on the banks of the River Clyde watching the first voyage of the newly-built RMS Queen Mary in 1936
- The famous Gleneagles Hotel in Perthshire, host of the 2014 Ryder Cup, pictured in 1932
- Glasgow Green and the tightly-packed tenements of the Gorbals in 1928
- The first boxing match at Wembley Stadium in 1924
- The Thames Flood of 1947 in which over 100,000 properties were affected
- The historic stadium Cardiff Arms Park in 1932
The Britain from Above website features a high degree of interactivity and is designed to encourage wide public participation. Users can download images, customise their own themed photo galleries, share personal memories, and add information to enrich the understanding for each of the images. They are also invited to identity the locations of a number of “mystery” images that have left the experts stumped.
The Aerofilms Collection was acquired for the nation in 2007 when the company was facing financial difficulties. With the support of the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Foyle Foundation, RCAHMS, English Heritage and the Royal Commission in Wales embarked on a programme to conserve, catalogue and digitise the collection and make it freely available online.
Rebecca Bailey, Head of Education and Outreach at RCAHMS, said, “The history of Aerofilms is inextricably linked to the history of modern Britain. Between 1919 and 1953, there was vast and rapid change to the social, architectural and industrial fabric of Britain, and Aerofilms provides a unique and at times unparalleled perspective on this upheaval. We hope that people today will be able to immerse themselves in the past through the new website, adding their own thoughts and memories to this remarkable collection.”
The number of images available to view on the website will continue to grow, and by the end of the project in 2014, some 95,000 images taken between 1919 and 1953 will be visible online. All of the digitised imagery of Scotland – some 5,000 images so far – is also available to view on the RCAHMS Canmore database and the National Collection of Aerial Photography (NCAP) website.
