Imagine a huge patchwork quilt in the shape of the British Isles but instead of squares of patterned cloth each space is filled with a photograph. That in microcosm is the project currently underway by Geograph web site which was conceived by Gary Rogers whose concept was to collect and publish online at least one representative photograph per grid square and which went live on 6th March 2005.

Around the same time, the education department of Ordnance Survey, the national mapping agency of Great Britain (OS), was seeking to develop an online gallery of images where teachers could exchange photographs and see them plotted on a map. In the course of their research, OS stumbled on Geograph and realised that this was what they were looking for but rather than replicate the site they decided to adopt it.

Ordnance Survey is the national mapping agency for Great Britain and one of the world's largest producers of maps. Its origins date back to the 18th century when it was formed for a military purpose, that of mapping Scotland in the wake of the Jacobite rebellion of 1745 and there was also a more general and nationwide need in light of the potential threat of invasion during the Napoleonic Wars, reflected in the inclusion of the War Department's broad arrow in the agency's logo. Today, OS is a non-ministerial government department, executive agency and trading fund under the remit of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. It is also a member of the Public Data Group.

Geograph Project Limited was subsequently formed in December 2010 to sustain and grow the Geograph project. It is a not-for-profit company, limited by guarantee, whose objects are educational in the broadest sense, registered in England and Wales: number 7473967. The registered office is 26 Cloister Road, Acton, London W3 0DE. Geograph Project Limited is a charity registered in England and Wales: number 1145621.

The number of contributors and submissions has continued to expand over the years. One million images had been published by October 2008, two million by August 2010, three million by the end of June 2012 and four million in early June 2014.The Bourne web site pioneered the use of digital photography to attract readers when we began in 1998 and we have now joined the project as a registered user to share some of the images collected over the past sixteen years.

During that time we received a great deal of encouragement from around the world and an email which arrived on Wednesday 23rd March 2011 was a particular inspiration to further endeavour: “Over the years I have scoured the web to find inspiration for my art. In all that time I have never come across a web site such as yours. Not only are the images vivid, but they make one want to grab their cameras and go and shoot off a reel or two of film. The historians of my town could do well to look to your site for inspiration. Congratulations and long may you continue. - Yours admiringly, Stephen Phillips, Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales.”

We have therefore continued with the work and hope that this picture archive will be a fulfilment of that undertaking. There are already more than 850 images on site and we hope to increase this as the weeks go by to reflect some of the buildings and places of note in Bourne, the object of the exercise being to create a pictorial chronicle of town and district within the nationwide context and at the same time compile a library of photographs that will remain available for future generations.

Not all of those submitted are accepted if they do not meet the rigorous requirement of the Geograph Project but so far every one of our images offered is now on site. We have begun with some of the main features from Bourne and the surrounding villages, each photograph with its own historical narrative, and within a few months we hope it will expand into a considerable archive.

The Geograph site is archived for preservation
by the UK Web Archive project.

Go to The Bourne Picture Archive