This website is the result of a collaborative project between the National Library of Scotland and Western Isles Libraries in 2017-19 to conserve and put online seven uniquely important maps of Lewis and Stornoway, owned by Western Isles Libraries.
The maps are significant, partly because they are the only known copies of these works, and also because they provide very detailed, and sometimes unique, topographic information on Lewis and Stornoway, and the development of these places over the last 250 years.
The collaboration has allowed these maps, owned and formerly only accessible directly in person within Western Isles Libraries in Stornoway, to be made available to a global audience. The digitisation of the maps has also allowed them to be georeferenced, adding significant value too. The maps can be overlaid onto modern day satellite and map images, as well as directly compared to each other on screen. This has a particular value in showing the evolution of Stornoway, and of other parts of Lewis, over time.
Through funding from the Aurelius Trust, specialist conservation work was undertaken on James Chapman's Plan of the Town of Stornoway, Imrisligach and Inaclete, ca. 1800. Two detailed blog posts describe the plans for the conservation of this map (October 2018) as well as the conservation work process and successful result (February 2019), which allowed this map to be scanned.