I was right – it took almost three years to arrive in Ormskirk, but this week Google launched Street View across most of the country including Ormskirk.
Argleton might have been wiped off the main Google map but it’s still there in Street View as you can see in the above Street View of Argleton Aughton Village Hall.
Edge Hill’s St Helens Road and Ruff Lane entrances are present but you can’t (yet!) look around the campus or Ormskirk Town Centre:
Strangely on Ruff Lane the section immediately past the entrance is missing. I don’t think this is a conspiracy, it’s more likely the route the Google Street View car took.
Post links to any interesting things you’ve found on Google Street View.
One thing about this is the car-driver view of the country. If you can’t drive along it, it doesn’t appear, so vast networks of footpaths, alleys, folds, twittens, gittens etc are invisible even though they have been arteries of travel for thousands of years.
I think it’s only a matter of time before many of these places are revealed. Google have camera bikes that can go into some areas and are working with other organisations to get access to otherwise private sites.
There was an article in the Register last week about the cycling route options being deployed in the US, and the progress being made by Google to map the network of footpaths etc…
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/03/10/google_maps_bikes/
Roy,
The National Trust is one organisation working with Google:
http://bit.ly/cijeNo
Hi Mike,
I’ve been showing family and friends Google Street View over the weekend. Older people are very impressed and very concerned at the same time (a bit like me – I wrote about it on my blog – Look! We’re on Google Street View!). Younger people are not phased by it at all. My daughter’s reaction was to ask “when will we be able to see in people’s houses?”. My reply was “when you tidy your bedroom up!” but it did surprise me at how little it bothered her. She’s only 7 and has little understanding of privacy issues but it does shows the possible change in attitudes the next generation may have.
So far I’ve only been nosing but I intend to look up a venue I have to visit on Wednesday later on today and see if it can help me with my navigation. The possibilities are endless!
Marieke