The Charles Close Society for the study of Ordnance Survey Maps - Archives.
The CCS archives at present contain materials from
Each body of material is in the process of being catalogued separately and details of their content will be added to the site. This contains details of the collections and maps, their location, the opening hours and how to access them.
Please read these details carefully before making any requests to view the collection.
The Charles Close Society Archives is a place of deposit appointed by the Lord Chancellor, and is located in the Map Department of Cambridge University Library, West Road, Cambridge CB3 9DR (http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/maps/Home.htm).
The collection is open during normal library hours, 9.30 am to 5.10 pm Monday to Thursdays, 9.30 am to 4.50 pm on Fridays, and 9.30 am to 12.30 pm on Saturdays.
Appointments for access to the Archives should be made in advance by contacting the Head of the Map Department, Anne Taylor, by letter, by telephone (01223 333041) or by email (maps@lib.cam.ac.uk*REMOVETHIS*).
Anyone wishing to use the collection must first acquire a Cambridge University Library readers ticket. An appointment to acquire a ticket should be made in advance with the Admissions Office (telephone 01223 333084, email admissions@lib.cam.ac.uk*REMOVETHIS*). Members of the Charles Close Society wishing to consult the Charles Close Society Archives will not be charged for a ticket on production of their current CCS membership card and providing that they have first contacted Anne Taylor who will support their application.
The archive contains documentary and printed material dealing with cartographic matters which are relevant in particular to the Ordnance Survey. These have been deposited from three principal sources, Ordnance Survey, Ministry of Defence, and the Directorate of Overseas Surveys. A summary catalogue of the holdings is available in the Map Department at Cambridge. This is gradually being expanded and converted into digital form, and as sections of the catalogue are completed they will be posted on this website, initially in tabular form, ultimately with full browse and search facilities.
Both the Ordnance Survey and Ministry of Defence deposits contain technical works, catalogues, publication reports, historical material, papers written for academic journals, and much other printed material of relevance to the Ordnance Surveys, both in Great Britain and Ireland. The Ordnance Survey deposit contains in addition a large quantity of documents, in particular files defining the specification of individual series, and master files (also known as sheet history files or job files) for individual sheets, in which was recorded technical information relating to the revision, printing and reprinting of those maps. Series that are strongly represented include the one-inch Seventh Series, the 1:50,000 First Series, the 1:250,000 Fifth Series, the postwar half-inch map and the ten-mile Planning Series maps.
The Directorate of Overseas Survey deposit contains map production, survey, and technical assistance and technical cooperation files dating back to about 1970 for many countries, especially those forming the British Commonwealth of nations.
Many of the Ordnance Survey files contain record copies of maps, some in experimental form. Record copies of all known printings of the 1:250,000 Fifth Series are held, as well as pre-publication copies of the 1:25,000 Provisional Edition. It is however not a policy for the archive in general to hold copies of Ordnance Survey or military maps, though it is hoped that the current owners of rare or even unique printings of maps will view the archive as a safe and permanent place of deposit. Many such maps are at risk of disposal, dispersal or destruction and the disappearance of such irreplaceable items would be a permanent loss to our Ordnance Survey heritage. It is intended that digital images of such maps on CD-ROM should form an increasingly important element of the collection.