New website: British Transport Treasures

British Transport Treasures
http://www.britishtransporttreasures.com.

A warm welcome to the new "British Transport Treasures" website from Stuart Rankin, who as many readers will know wrote a number of excellent pamphlets and three guided walks about Rotherhithe, all of which I have been using over the years as a major source of information for my blog.  The new website is about transport all around Britain, not just London, so there is a lot to discover.  You can find the site at: http://www.britishtransporttreasures.com.

The site has been put together to supply printable downloads of classic historical works about transport, as well as attractive souvenir items and printed ephemera, for educational and decorative purposes - collages, decorative screens, scrapbooks etc, including colourful examples of the best in Victorian, Art Nouveau, Art Deco and Austerity, print and graphic design.   All the publications are high resolution scans, which are in PDF format. 

An awful lot of these publications are no longer in print and are difficult to get hold of second hand, so this really is a useful resource.  See, for example, Nathaniel Gould's "Historical notice of the Commercial Docks in the Parish of Rotherhithe, County of Surrey 1844."  The site is in its early stages and many more publications will be added in time.

Fully printable downloads of facsimile books, souvenirs and documents are priced from 50p to £5.00.  It is not a profit-making venture and the charges are made to help cover hosting costs, and for each download purchased a donation of 5p will go to Help For Heroes. 

The publications are shown in categories on the Home page, and listed by title on the Shopping page.  If you are looking for something in particular (I searched for "Rotherhithe") the search engine works well.  This is not just a catalogue of items, but each has a description setting it an historical context, which can be read without buying the item and some of these provide some really great information in their own right.

A really good resource, with a trusted name behind it.