Another major new research resource has just gone live in the form of Britain from Above, an online archive of 15,000 images from the Aerofilms Collection, taken between 1919 and 1953. The photographs document Britain during a period of major change. Highlights from the collection include the Thames Flood of 1947, and many other views of the Thames and related buildings.

Users of the database are being invited to share personal memories and add information to enrich our understanding of individual images. They are also invited to identify the locations of a number of mystery images that have left the experts stumped.

The Aerofilms Collection consists of more than 1 million pictures, taken between 1919 and 2006. It was acquired for the nation in 2007 with the help of funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Foyle Foundation. English Heritage and the Royal Commissions in Wales and Scotland then embarked on a programme to conserve, catalogue and digitise the collection and make it freely available online. Further pictures from the collection will be added over coming months.