The first Ordnance Surveys of the Island were done c.1867-1870 and are rich in detail showing what treasures the Island had at that time like standing stones, tumuli, cairns, holy/healing/domestic wells, forts, chapels etc. If you have never seen one of them fair warning and be prepared to lose hours of your time as it is almost impossible to look at just one map – I have lost days of my life thanks to the OS!
One of the projects I am working on is adding the locations of certain features from these first OS Maps to Google Earth to see what treasures we had against what we have remaining and this will then support some further planned research. The current area of focus is the south of the Island and so far around 270 features have been mapped from Rushen to Santon with quite a few more still to be added.
Updates will follow in due course.
Links to the OS Maps can be found at the end of this post on the Maddrells of Ballahane