Great Britain Historical GIS Project: A Vision of Britain though Time Generating Vector Data and Statistics from the Stamp survey Brian Baily and Humphrey Southall (Department of Geography, University of Portsmouth)

Great Britain Historical GIS Project: A Vision of Britain though Time 29th June Structure of presentation: Published and unpublished maps of the Land Utilisation Survey of Great Britain How accurate was the LUSGB? Generating Quantitative Data from the LUSGB: –Scanning –Geo-rectification –Classification –Vectorisation Research funded by: –Environment Agency –DEFRA –Frederick Soddy Trust

Great Britain Historical GIS Project: A Vision of Britain though Time 29th June LUSGB One Inch sheets Published using 9 different printers, so significant variation

Great Britain Historical GIS Project: A Vision of Britain though Time 29th June LUSGB unpublished maps of upland Scotland 56 sheets covering upland Scotland never published due to lack of funds, although survey work fully complete Water-colour versions deposited with RGS Individually signed-off by Stamp

Great Britain Historical GIS Project: A Vision of Britain though Time 29th June LUSGB 10 mile to the inch summary sheets Use slightly simplified classification

Great Britain Historical GIS Project: A Vision of Britain though Time 29th June LUSGB Colour separations Held by LSE library Survive only for 20 sheets, and the southern national summary sheet Sample shows light green layer, i.e. pasture Very easy to computerise

Great Britain Historical GIS Project: A Vision of Britain though Time 29th June Digitising the Land Utilisation Survey Project in 2004 funded by Environment Agency and DEFRA scanned and geo-referenced all published sheets –Greatly assisted by map librarians around Britain Additional project in 2005 funded by Soddy Trust added unpublished Scottish sheets –Whole LUSGB finally published! All now available on Vision of Britain web site: –

Great Britain Historical GIS Project: A Vision of Britain though Time 29th June How accurate could the Stamp survey be? Carried out by schoolchildren Instruction leaflet only 4 sides –Little discussion of defining either the urban fringe or the moorland fringe And were the terms well-defined anyway? –"We have never been able to get a satisfactory dividing line and our definition has not in practice amounted to much more than saying that rough grazings are grazings that are not smooth" (Minute of 28/7/1941, in PRO MAF 38/211)

Great Britain Historical GIS Project: A Vision of Britain though Time 29th June Comparing the LUSGB and the 1931 Farm Census Land utilisation Survey1931 Agricultural Census ArableArable land Permanent grassPermanent Grass. For hay Permanent grass. Not for hay Orchards Forests and woodland Rough grazingRough Grazings Houses with gardens Land agriculturally unproductive

Great Britain Historical GIS Project: A Vision of Britain though Time 29th June The 1930s in longer-term perspective England and Wales Worcestershire Arable versus Permanent Grass from the Farm Census

Great Britain Historical GIS Project: A Vision of Britain though Time 29th June Comparison of total acreages:

Great Britain Historical GIS Project: A Vision of Britain though Time 29th June Comparing Arable Land Cornwall

Great Britain Historical GIS Project: A Vision of Britain though Time 29th June Mapping Arable Land

Great Britain Historical GIS Project: A Vision of Britain though Time 29th June Comparing Permanent Pasture Cornwall

Great Britain Historical GIS Project: A Vision of Britain though Time 29th June Comparing Rough Grazing Cornwall

Great Britain Historical GIS Project: A Vision of Britain though Time 29th June From the Cornwall County Report “It is clear that the Land Utilisation surveyors have included as arable only land under crops or newly laid down to grass; all other grassland has been recorded as permanent grass (including long-ley) whilst some neglected grass returned by farmers as “rough grazing” has also been included as grassland. The Survey’s total of rough grazing is nearly all true unenclosed moor, some of which escapes the agricultural returns.” (p. 465) Farms within Cornwall typically “have 25-30% of their acreage under crops, and the remainder under long-ley or permanent grassland. This long-ley grassland, which may be under grass for from four to eight years, is typical of Cornwall as it is of many other counties on the west side of Great Britain” (p. 418) It was not true that the surveyors were ill-trained children. Local volunteers only surveyed about a third of the county and “it became apparent that the survey could best by carried out by academically trained geographers” (p.465). Stamp was particularly keen on the correct representation of Cornwall as he was a part-time resident himself (p. 408)