You are here: Home / Organisations / The Domesday Project

The Domesday Project

by Richard Millwood published Jul 13, 2009 03:55 PM, last modified Apr 05, 2011 11:02 PM
From 1984 to 1986 the Domesday Project, organised by the BBC, gathered film, photographs, descriptions and data to cover the United Kingdom, publishing it all on an innovative variant of laser disc technology, LV-ROM in November 1986 in celebration of the 900th anniversary of the Norman Domesday Book.

The BBC Domesday Project was carried out to celebrate the 900th anniversary of the original Domesday Book. Over a million people took part, particularly school children, to gather descriptions and photographs for almost every part of the United Kingdom. The contributions from schools were organised through the local education authorities. There were two discs in the Domesday Project package: the Community Disc and the National Disc.

The Community disc showed Britain as seen by the people who live there, permitting navigation through maps to locate individual neighbourhoods. Key social data was also supplied on the discs - a new form of video disc called LV-ROM - to add to the geographical maps a layer of information about social issues.

The National disc provided an overview of Britain and included television and photographic material selected to represent key events and aspects of British life.