Historic Houses and Gardens

HISTORIC HOUSES & GARDENS is a compilation of 100 vertical aerial photographs of the most noteworthy British great houses and their grounds, taken from the Millennium Map.


St Michael's Mount, set atop a romantic Cornish island; Chequers in Buckinghamshire, the Prime Minister's residence; Chatsworth, Derbyshire seat of the Dukes of Devonshire; Levens Hall in Cumbria, best known for its bizarre topiary; Kensington Palace, for its royalty; Igtham Mote, a Kentish moated manor house; Abbotsford, home and inspiration of Sir Walter Scott… HISTORIC HOUSES & GARDENS brings a surprising new angle to places such as these, and many more.


ABOUT THE MILLENNIUM MAP
Still being created, the Millennium Map is a fascinating venture. Inspired by the Domesday Book, Tristram Cary and Joe Studholme of Getmapping.com commissioned four specially equipped aircraft to fly the length and breadth of the country in strips – rather like a lawnmower – each one carrying state-of-the-art camera equipment valued at £250,000. These planes are systematically taking vertical photographs of the whole of the United Kingdom from an average height of 5,500 feet, recording every object right down to a minimum size of 25cm.


So far over 30km of nine-inch-wide film has been taken. After processing, each photograph is scanned at high resolution, subsequently undergoing a process known as geo-correction, which removes distortions caused by the tilt of the aircraft and the contours of the ground; the individual files are then colour-balanced and spliced together to form a single map-accurate 'mosaic' of the entire country.


In what must be the ultimate endorsement of its national significance, Her Majesty the Queen is a private investor in The Millennium Map; and when completed, the map will provide a snapshot of life in the year 2000 as historically important as William the Conqueror's survey of 1086.