Maps and plans from the Board of Trade and its successors, showing works and improvements...

These maps, of nineteenth and twentieth century date, show works constructed on Crown foreshore land and were used as legal proof of Crown ownership of the foreshore. They were also used to regulate foreshore development to provide for safe navigation, since plans of all developments affecting the British coastline had had to be submitted to and approved by a central government body. The authority administering this started as the General Department of the Board of Trade in 1840, but was amalgamated with other departments at regular intervals right up to the 1980s, by which time authority rested with the Department of Transport for works such as piers, slipways and bridges and with the Commissioners of the Crown Estates for general foreshore.

Coming within the scope of the Public Records Acts, these maps were assessed by the Public Record Office who identified some 13,000 pieces for transfer to the PRO. Approximately 200 maps have been transferred to the Archive Service in the past year and they relate to all parts of the former county. They show the industrial development and changes in the coastline of West Glamorgan, most marked at the estuary mouths of the rivers Tawe and Afan.