Heritage et AL

Below are eleven of my favourite digitised maps from Sir George Grey Special Collections . There are over 8000 maps in Sir George Grey Special Collections and about 1600 have been digitised.  Ref: New Zealand lighthouse chart, 1900, Sir George Grey Special Collections,  Auckland Libraries, NZ Map 516 A pictorial map showing where lighthouses are situated around the New Zealand coast. Ref: Campbell's beach estate, 1908, Sir George Grey Special Collections,  Auckland Libraries, NZ Map 6564 This map can be classified as real estate advertising. It shows allotments  for sale in Campbell's Bay on Auckland's North Shore.  Ref: 15 freehold allotments, 1865, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, NZ Map 4475-5 The map above, with careful illustrations of trees and houses, is from the nineteenth century and shows allotments for sale off Queen Street, Auckland. Ref: George Treacy Stevens, Auckland, 1886, Sir George Grey ...

Known also as ‘panoramic’ or ‘perspective’ maps, bird's-eye views of cities became popular in many parts of the world during the last quarter of the nineteenth century. The idea was to depict street patterns, prominent buildings and other landscape features as if viewed from above at an oblique angle. Sometimes the artists had recourse to hot-air balloons. More often, as was probably the case with this rendition of Auckland, they were reliant on observations made while trudging the city streets and the vistas available from taller buildings. Ref: NZ Map 374, bird's-eye view of Auckland City, 1886, Sir George Grey Special Collections   The inscription on the lower left corner reads: ‘This view is compiled and drawn as from a point one thousand feet above and one hundred feet to the rear of the hospital during the year 1885 and part of 1886, by George Treacy Stevens'. Little is known about the artist. He might be the ‘George Stevens’ buried in Karori Cemetery, Wellingto...