Meridian Airmaps images released

A new batch of 6,790 historic aerial images of Scotland, taken by Meridian Airmaps Limited, has been released and is now accessible online.

This batch includes complete cover of central Scotland in the early 1970's, as well as large parts of the Borders and Aberdeenshire. The images show Ravenscraig Steelworks, Motherwell, in operation in 1970 as well as John Brown's shipyard, Clydebank, where the assault ship HMS Intrepid and the refrigerated cargo ship MV Glenfinglas are seen in the final stages of construction in 1966.

Meridian Airmaps Limited was an aerial survey company formerly based at Shoreham Airport, Sussex. Meridian took aerial photography across Scotland from 1965 to 1989 to fulfil commercial aerial survey contracts covering subjects such as road improvement schemes and forestry plantations.

This aerial photography was copied as part of the NCAP digitisation programme, that will make 300,000 aerial images available online by June 2014.