Introduction

Aerial photographs offer a fascinating Birdseye view of towns, villages and the countryside. They show changes in town and country and can be enlarged to pinpoint particular features.

County-wide aerial surveys have been carried out since the 1970s (1971 – 3), 1980s (1983 – 5) and 1990s (1992 – 3). The 1971 - 73 Cheshire Aerial Survey covering the whole of the historic County can now be viewed online via the following link - 1970s Aerial Survey. Other smaller aerial surveys of parts of the County also exist (see survey examples). The Council has made these excellent and interesting views available to the public. The scale of the photos is about 6 inches to a mile or 1:10,000 (1cm : 100m) and each photograph covers an area about 2 and ¼ km² (1 ½ miles square). All the photographs are vertical shots, a map-like ‘straight down’ view of the landscape as it appeared at certain snapshots in time.

The various aerial surveys are of tremendous value to the Council and we feel you might also welcome the opportunity to own a photograph or set of views for your home, school, office, reception area or boardroom. There are limitless commercial and academic applications as well.

Available to everyone

Architects, Engineers, Surveyors, Valuers and Estate Agents, can use them for site reconnaissance, survey and publicity purposes.

• Solicitors, to settle disputes relating to conditions at a particular time.
• Firms, can use a photograph of their premises for display or exhibition purposes, or for the boardroom
• Schools, may want a photograph to show the school grounds and catchment area.
• Students, will be able to use aerial photographs for geography archaeology and environmental studies.
• Ecologists and Foresters, to map habitats and locate individual trees and other landscape features.
• Farmers, can buy photographs showing the whole of their land holdings
• Householders, can see their home in the neighbourhood they live in.
• Archaeologists, Landscape Historians, Planners, Publicity Departments, Newspapers, Magazines and many more will find Cheshire’s aerial photographs invaluable.

Photocopies

Photocopies of the original hard copy prints measuring approximately 9 ins. Square (22cm²), showing an area about 1½ miles square (2 ¼ km²) covering all parts of the county. See tab above for coverage.

Enlargements

Enlargements can zoom in to particular features of a photograph. Enlargements are taken from the 9 ins. Square (22cm²) original photographs. An area measuring 10cm x 7cm (4ins. x 2.7 ins) can be enlarged up to A3 in size (42cm x 59cm or 16.5 ins. x 23 ins.).

Actual Prints

Colour and/or black and white photocopies are more than adequate for most purposes. However, greater detail can be gained from the actual negatives where required. Actual prints can also be reproduced from the negatives held by the companies who undertook the various surveys where they are required. See survey examples for the contact details of respective firms.

Other Aerial Surveys

As well as the County aerial surveys there are several other aerial photo surveys of parts of Cheshire also held by the Council taken at various scales, see below:

1940s Aerial Survey

The Environmental Planning Service keeps a limited number of aerial photographs (857) taken by the RAF during the mid to late 1940s of which 632 are in good condition. They mainly cover the west of Cheshire and the Wirral and are all black and white. Virtually all of the RAF photographs are at a nominal scale of 1:10,000. See survey examples for extent of coverage and an example.

1950s, 60s and 70s high resolution aerial photographs

The aerial photographs in this survey were passed to Environmental Planning from the Engineering Land Surveying Team within the Engineering Service in spring 2003. The Engineering Land Surveying Team commissioned several small aerial surveys from the early 1950s to the 1970s to cover various road schemes being constructed within the County. The photographs in this survey are black and white and are at scales of 1:3,000, 1:8,000 and 1:10,000. The large scale aerial photographs i.e. those less than 1:10,000 in scale are useful for gleaning a high level of detail.

1999 – 2001 Millennium Map

The Council also makes use of more recent aerial imagery dating to 1999 – 2001 from GetMapping’s Millennium Map™. The imagery is copyright of GetMapping. The imagery can be viewed and purchased online.