The documents in this series consist of folders containing information on geographical features, villages, hamlets and individual buildings (often with names of owner or occupier) within each parish, including place names and the authority for their spelling. They comprise the earliest surviving record of place names in England and Wales collected by the Ordnance Survey.
Only books relating to the counties of Cumberland, Durham, Hampshire (the Isle of Wight only), Northumberland and Westmorland survived enemy action in 1940.