Organisation

Views of England and Wales is organised by historic county, with a couple of exceptions made for the inclusion of London and Wales. It possesses excellent national coverage for England with all historic counties represented apart from Rutland and Staffordshire. Coverage for Wales is not quite as extensive since only five of the thirteen historic counties are covered. Four of them – Caernarfonshire, Flintshire, Merionethshire and Pembrokeshire – are grouped under Wales. The fifth one, Monmouthshire, is not categorised under Wales with the other four, presumably because it has thirty-one prints whereas the other four historic counties have just one print each.

The organisation of Views of England and Wales into historic counties remains the decision of the original organiser(s). It is both pragmatic because it allows for places to be easily found and reflects the focus and expertise of the Department (then Centre) on localities and regions. Within each county, prints, artwork and photographs are typically organised alphabetically. There are numerous exceptions to this rule and locations have been updated during the course of the digitisation of this collection resulting in some material appearing out of sync.