Catalogue description Great Western Railway Company: Estates and Rating

The surveys contained in this series were transferred from BR(WR) Estates department offices at Slough and 66 Porchester Road in July 1974. Whilst similar surveys are maintained at Slough and are continually marked up with details of land transactions etc, the present set appears to have come to that Department from another source, probably the secretary's office of GWR. There is no complementary series of reference books, but a topographical Index is filed as piece No.1. A number of volumes are Wanting, and a note concerning some of these appears after piece No.153; the absence of others is to some extent explained by the exceptionally poor conditions which prevailed in the outhouse at Porchester Road where the major part of the volumes were stored. A number were so far decayed as to be beyond redemption for record purposes and were not accessioned. A few so affected, which retained amounts of detail which justified their retention, were transferred; but those which had been reduced to a pulp state by damp and wet were left behind. (known volume numbers which can be accounted for are as follows: - Vol.10, and Vols. 23, 70, 110, 150, 158, 160, 169. The covers for these were received, but were found to have no contents. Vols. 109, and 112 to 113 have been badly affected by damp and mould, and are marked Unfit for Production.) Some volume numbers are duplicated, indicating the survival of earlier surveys for the same portion of line. In some cases dates on the covers etc of the surveys conflict with the contents, and where this and other ambiguities exist, the date which appears in the list is that which appears to be most consistent with the contents of the volume.

No records of the Estates Department were transferred before 1972, and generally speaking the primary records of this department are in continuing administrative use. However some few plans etc which were created in and used by the department (at Slough) are included at the end of the series under piece numbers 154 to 160.