English Heritage
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MAJOR AERIAL PHOTO COLLECTION TO BE CONSERVED AND MADE AVAILABLE ONLINE
English Heritage is delighted that the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) has agreed to support the conservation and digitisation of one of the earliest and most significant collections of oblique aerial photography of the United Kingdom with a grant of £1,755,772.
This generous grant will help English Heritage and the Royal Commissions on the Ancient and Historical Monuments for Scotland and Wales to undertake a four-year conservation programme on the oldest and most valuable photographs in the historic Aerofilms Collection and to make them freely available online.
The Aerofilms Collection, acquired for the nation in 2007, is a unique and important archive of over 1 million aerial photographs taken between 1919 and 2006 which show the changing face of Britain during the twentieth century.
New website to be launched in 2011
The four-year programme will start in 2011, and will give the general public the chance to share information and memories related to the images. Fragile negatives will be conserved and scanned into digital format, and a new website, Britain from Above, will be launched at the end of 2011. By the end of the project, in 2014, there will be 95,000 images taken between 1919 and 1953 available online.
Sharing memories and knowledge
Nigel Clubb, Director of the English Heritage National Monuments Record, said: “This is wonderful news. Thanks to the support of the HLF, the Foyle Foundation and our other donors we will be able to make this amazing collection accessible to everybody to enjoy, as well as to share their memories and knowledge with others.”
Carole Souter, Chief Executive of the Heritage Lottery Fund, said: “The Aerofilms Collection gives a spectacular snapshot of the changing landscape of Britain during the first half of the 20th century. The archive tells us much about the buildings and places that made up the backdrop of everyday life so its great news that it will now be shared more widely. Confirmation of the Heritage Lottery Fund’s grant means the project can start in earnest with hundreds of volunteers getting involved.”
