Maps

Durham County Record Office has extensive holdings of maps covering the historic County Durham (before 1974) between the Rivers Tyne and Tees, and the present county.

Find information on this page about County Durham historic mapping that you can view online:

• search interactive maps
• search Durham Collieries

You will also find details of the Ordnance Survey, tithe, estate and other maps held in the Record Office.

For further information about maps and plans please see our Information Guide.

Historic maps on Durham County Council’s Geographic Information System (GIS)

The Geographic Information System is an interactive mapping service which allows you to interact with both modern and historical maps and aerial photographs of County Durham and the immediate surrounding areas.

You can now search interactive maps on this website. Features include:

• Present-day mapping at 1:2500 scale (25 inches to the mile)
• Historic mapping at 1:10,560 scale (6 inches to the mile)
• Aerial surveys for 1940, 2001 and 2010
• Adjustable transparency slider to reveal the present-day base map beneath historic or aerial mapping

Ordnance Survey (OS) maps

County Series

Our main OS map series is available in two scales:

• 1:10,560 (6 inches to the mile)
• 1:2500 (25 inches to the mile)

The six-inch sheets cover an area of six by four miles on the ground.
The twenty-five inch sheets cover an area of one by one and a half miles, and show the most detail.

At each scale there are up to four editions of the same map.  These editions correspond to the dates when County Durham was surveyed.

We also have some large scale town plans covering Durham City, scale 1:500 (10.56 feet to 1 mile), surveyed in 1857.

County Series mapping was superseded by the National Grid Series after the Second World War.

National Grid Series

Ordnance Survey maps are in copyright for 50 years after publication date.  We cannot copy any National Grid maps published after 1970.

There are three National Grid map scales:

• 1:1250 (50.688 inches to the mile)
• 1:2500 (25.344 inches to the mile)
• 1:10,560 (6 inches to the mile) and 1:10,000 (from 1970)

Our holdings of National Grid maps, at all three scales, cover the period 1951-1991. The majority of these maps are from the 1950s to 1970s.

Search interactive maps on this website.

Tithe plans

We hold tithe plans for many parishes in County Durham. Most of these plans were made in the period 1838-1852.

See Tithe plans and Apportionments.

Estate maps

There are many estate maps and plans in our Estate and Family Records, and other collections.

Our earliest map is a plan of the manor of Eggleston, by Richard Baines, 1614 (Ref No. D/Bo/A 945). See this map in the Oldest, largest, longest… section of our Picture Gallery

County maps

There are several maps of County Durham from the 16th century onwards in the Durham County Library Collection ref: D/CL.  Use the Catalogue Index or scroll down to go to reference D/CL 23.

See Pictures in Print to view maps and prints before 1860 online.

Boundary maps

There is a series of Boundary Order maps in the Durham County Council records.

For maps after 1974 see ref: DC/AA Boundary Order Maps

For maps before 1974 see ref: CC/X Maps of local government boundary changes