The past is not just something in books and libraries. It doesn’t even stop at the door of a museum or stately home. Everything that surrounds us, each hedgerow and parkland, every factory building and playing field – even the house where you live - is a part of the historic environment and can be read like words on a page, telling the story of how, when and why it was built.

The stories told are sometimes very new. The Meadowhall Shopping Centre tells us about the way we have shopped since the early 1990s. Other stories are far older - parish churches giving us an opportunity to learn about how the communities of South Yorkshire lived, up to a thousand years ago.

‘Historic Characterisation’ is a new way of using digital maps to record the different stories told by the places where we live. Our project has described the historic characteristics of every part of South Yorkshire and this website is your chance to access these records. You can either go straight to our interactive map to find out about where you live or work, or follow the other links above to find out more about our project.

The Development of South Yorkshire

Using the information recorded by the project it is possible to produce generalised maps showing the past landscapes of South Yorkshire. These are just some of the stories about the region that we have discovered.