dataset · United Kingdom
Geotechnical site investigation records: Scotland and Northern England.
The collection of over 19,000 site investigation reports for Scotland and Northern England consists of records of boreholes, trial pits, geotechnical results and interpretative reports acquired from various sources. The collection started c.1960 to cater for the increasing amount of post-war shallow drilling for building and road construction which was kept separately by the Survey from the Borehole Journal collection reserved for deeper geologist examined mineral bores. The site investigation r
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Licence: ["The copyright of materials derived from the British Geological Survey's work is vested in the Natural Environment Research Council [NERC]. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in an
Evidence quality: 51.4
Listed in data.gov.uk public catalogue API on 2026-10-16; relevance/value screened (haiku).
Metadata checked: 2026-10-14T13:20:00.000Z
What's in it
- Data offered docs-verified
- borehole records · trial pit records · geotechnical results · interpretative reports · Land Survey Record Index (LSRI) · Single Onshore Borehole Index (SOBI)
- Coverage docs-verified
- Scotland and Northern England (latitude 53.88 to 60.84, longitude -8.65 to -0.53) · c.1960 onwards
- Update frequency docs-verified
- daily (as stated in metadata; see limitations)
- Formats docs-verified
- microfilm
- Access docs-verified
- Consultation only, restricted. Only the factual parts of reports are publicly inspectable. Copyright is vested in NERC, so reproduction or transmission needs prior permission from the copyright holder via BGS. Licence field not set in metadata.
Useful for
- Use cases llm-inferred
- Desk study of historic ground conditions from nearby boreholes and trial pits before a site investigation · Foundation and earthworks context from historic geotechnical results for building or road schemes · Locating SOBI-indexed boreholes to support a ground model for a site in Scotland or Northern England
- Audience llm-inferred
- geotechnical engineers · civils engineers · engineering geologists · site investigation consultants · GIS analysts
Limitations
- Constraints llm-inferred
- Reports are on microfilm; only factual parts are publicly inspectable and reproduction is restricted · Shallow Borehole (SB) files for Northern England are no longer added to and are not indexed on LSRI · SOBI indexes only boreholes and trial pits in reports with adequate site plans · Metadata reference date is 1950 while the summary says the collection started c.1960 · Metadata says update frequency is daily, which conflicts with the SB files no longer being added to · Licence field in the entry is truncated and the dataset licence is listed as not set · Not an API or machine-readable dataset as far as the docs state; the docs mention no download formats for the reports themselves
Evidence
- https://www.bgs.ac.uk/
- https://www.data.gov.uk/dataset/47028822-61ee-4a1c-9337-771754bf5dc8/geotechnical-site-investigation-records-scotland-and-northern-england
Check upstream coverage, uncertainty and licence before use. Station observations are not forecasts or design levels.