Heritage Search FAQs

Thank you for using Heritage Search – we hope you find it both helpful and interesting. We have provided below some answers to FAQs (frequently asked questions), to explain the rationale behind Heritage Search and to share our plans for developing and improving it further in the coming months and years.

Individual catalogue or index records on Heritage Search have a dedicated contact button, enabling you to ask us for more information about those specific items.

However, if you have a general query about Heritage Search, or some feedback you would like to share, please feel free to contact us.

What is Heritage Search?

Heritage Search is a catalogue of Oxfordshire’s heritage resources held by Oxfordshire County Council.

It includes datasets from:

Oxford Historic Environment Record

How can I access it?

Heritage Search is freely available online at www.oxfordshire.gov.uk/heritagesearch

What information does it contain?

Oxfordshire History Centre – Archives catalogue

Oxford City Council – Archives catalogue

includes those Oxford City Archives stored at Oxfordshire History Centre.
includes those Oxford City Archives held at Oxford Town Hall, for which separate access arrangements apply.

Oxfordshire History Centre – Local Studies catalogue

Oxfordshire History Centre – Picture Oxon photographic catalogue

Oxfordshire History Centre – Audio (oral history) catalogue

Oxfordshire History Centre – miscellaneous indexes and handlists

Name indexes to newspaper and parish poor law records;
Holdings lists of sale catalogues, enclosure records, tithe records, deposited plans and digital publications

Oxfordshire Museums Service

Catalogue of archaeological finds
Catalogue of social history objects

Oxfordshire Historic Environment Record

Known and suspected heritage assets recorded on the Oxfordshire HER (county).

Oxford Historic Environment Record

Known and suspected heritage assets recorded on the Oxford HER (city):
1. polygons and lines;
2. points.

Mapping platform – access to historic Ordnance Survey mapping, with links to datasets from Oxfordshire History Centre and Oxfordshire Historic Environment Record (county) and Oxford Historic Environment Record (city).

There is more information here about the coverage of datasets included in Heritage Search.

How do I consult the items listed on Heritage Search?

Items from Archive (document) and Local Studies (publications) collections can be consulted at Oxfordshire History Centre. Check our website for details of our opening hours, booking procedures and research / copying service.
Digital images created from OHC’s photographic collections can be consulted on Picture Oxon. Catalogue records (text only) for all our catalogued images can be consulted online, but to see original images we haven’t yet digitised, you’ll need to make an appointment to consult them at Oxfordshire History Centre.
Many of our museum objects are on public display at the Oxfordshire Museum, Swalcliffe Barn and at other museums in the county. Please contact us to check before you visit. If you would like to enquire about accessing objects currently in store, please also contact us.
You can find out more here about how the Oxfordshire Historic Environment Record (HER) records buildings, monuments, excavations, surveys and archaeological finds in Oxfordshire county (excluding Oxford City).
You can find out more here about more here about how the Oxford HER records known heritage assets in Oxford City.
Individual heritage assets listed on the HER include a ‘gateway’ link to further information on Historic England’s Heritage Gateway. For advice on a particular heritage asset recorded on the HER, contact the Oxfordshire HER staff (county) here, and the Oxford HER (City Urban Design and Heritage Team) here.
Digital publications deposited with Oxfordshire Historic Environment Record (HER) and Oxford City HER, including historic building reports and archaeological evaluation reports, can be consulted at Oxfordshire History Centre, and are listed here.

How does Picture Oxon relate to Heritage Search?

Picture Oxon (our online photographic archive) is fully integrated into Heritage Search and can be searched simultaneously alongside all our heritage datasets.
You can also search Picture Oxon separately at its now well-known addresses of www.pictureoxon.org.uk and pictureoxon.com.
Using our historic mapping platform, it is possible to display Picture Oxon search results for some geo-referenced image collections as points on a map base, allowing you to browse those images in a spatial way instead of as a linear list of text and thumbnails.
Our longer term ambition is to greatly extend the geo-referencing of Picture Oxon’s images with your help, enabling more collections to be viewed via the mapping platform, and allowing users to ‘browse the landscape’ for their area of interest. In future, asking individuals to adopt a place, site or collection, and geo-reference images directly, using new online tools, will enable us to engage more readily the help of local residents and anyone with an interest in Oxfordshire history.

Do I have to pay for copies of images?

Where we have already digitised images from our photographic collections, the Picture Oxon website provide free access to water-marked thumbnails of 700-1000 pixels in size. You are welcome to share or re-use those thumbnails on social media with due acknowledgement of Oxfordshire History Centre, and by citing our ‘POX’ image reference number.
You can place an online order, pay, and immediately download ‘archive quality’ digital images from Picture Oxon, for private use.
Reuse of images in a publication, or commercially, may attract an extra fee. Please contact us for advice if your intended use extend beyond private study or research.

Do I have to pay for copies of audio recordings?

Where we have already digitised sound recordings from our oral history collections, these are available for online purchase and download in mp3 audio format via Heritage Search.
For personal visitors to Oxfordshire History Centre, there is free access to the same mp3 audio recordings.
Where a sound recording has not been digitised, we regret that we are unable to provide an on-demand digitisation service.
Some oral history interviews are only available as text transcripts.

What does the mapping platform offer?

Free access to multiple layers of historic and modern mapping of the county, presented within a single interface.
The foundation of the historic mapping is six-inch (to one mile) and 25-inch scale Ordnance Survey plans from the “County Series,” with a range of editions from 1876 to 1939.
Later post-war Ordnance Survey “National Grid” plans extend coverage up to 1996, including for the larger urban areas (Abingdon, Banbury, Oxford, Reading fringe) even more detailed 50-inch (1:1250) scale plans.
A modern Ordnance Survey “MasterMap” layer, plus a companion aerial photography layer, allow you to compare the older maps against the modern landscape.
Linked to these Ordnance Survey base map layers are graphical indexes to:
District Valuation maps and survey books, recording property ownership, created under the 1910 Finance Act
Tithe maps (1830s-1850s), covering 44% of historic Oxfordshire parishes
Aerial photos from 1961, 1981 and 1991
Layers of geo-referenced data, including historic parish boundaries, point references linking to selected images in Picture Oxon, and point or line references linking to assets in the Historic Environment Record database (county and city).

What improvements have you made to the original Heritage Search?

Heritage Search brings together in one place information on heritage assets from across Oxfordshire County Council’s history, museum and archaeology services. It provides a ‘federated’ search tool, allowing you to pinpoint information about people, places and topics across a wide range of media and collections.

New datasets not previously available in the old version of Heritage Search include:

Lists of enclosure records, tithe records, deposited plans and property sale catalogues
Lists of digital publications, created 1981-2021
An additional 60,000 name entries (commercial and personal names) in indexes to local newspapers, 1791-2011
Oxfordshire Historic Environment Record database of buildings, monuments, excavations, surveys and archaeological finds
Oxford Historic Environment Record database of known and suspected heritage assets recorded

The total number of heritage assets listed on new Heritage Search, compared to the old version, has increased by 260% to over 970,000 records

Advanced searching – allowing you to search across all our heritage datasets or only specific ones; and to filter results sets by format, date period, place, and monument type.

Browse function for Archive collections, allowing you to see records for specific items in the full and hierarchical context of the collection they belong to.

Browse function for Museum object collections, allowing you to see images of social history objects and archaeological finds in a gallery format.

Spreadsheet-style presentation for Oxfordshire History Centre’s name indexes and holdings lists of records, allowing you to search, sort and filter index entries, to target the information you need more easily.

The new mapping platform adds an extra dimension, allowing users to explore the landscape through historic maps and link to geo-referenced data in Heritage Search.

What are your plans for the future of Heritage Search?

Ability for users to add comments and corrections to Picture Oxon catalogue records, helping us to improve our documentation of the images we hold.

Further expansion of Picture Oxon’s coverage, adding new photographic collection catalogues and digital images from our volunteer effort –