| Description | The plans are first divided into two main groups: Plans of Land and Engineering Plans. This subject grouping is made without regard to their physical size, each group being numbered within itself; but for storage they are divided into three sizes: Large, Small and Rolled.
The Plans of Land are grouped by parishes (taking the extent of each parish as that shown in the collection itself, without regard to modern boundaries), and are stored in alphabetical order of parishes. This arrangement emphasises the physical aspect of England which had remained with little change for centuries, and which, when the last plan was drawn in the Fairbank office, was on the verge of being obliterated by the rapid expansion of county borough boundaries and the rise of new local government units.
2,263 plans are of places in the parish of Sheffield. These have been subdivided into:
(i) plans of the town and its townships, estates, street improvements, and drafts for enclosure awards;
(ii) (2) plans of property in the built-up area, the extent of the town roughly as shown on Tayler's map of 1832;
(iii) (3) plans of estates in the open country within the boundaries of the parish.
The Engineering Plans fall naturally into eight classes:
Bridges (35 in number),
Buildings (241),
Canals (54),
Collieries (14),
Railways (267),
Rivers (7),
Roads (224),
Waterworks (59).
Within these classes, the plans are arranged in alphabetical order by the names of the particular undertakings. |