Inch by inch: Restoring Delhi's lost blueprint

Wilson Survey maps, a century-old cartographic masterpiece, is being revived at a conservation lab at IGNCA—one brittle sheet at a time

- Paras Singh

NEW DELHI: Tucked away on the second floor of the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA) at Janpath, a quiet but meticulous effort is underway.

In a state-of-the-art, climate-controlled conservation lab, a team of experts is painstakingly restoring over a century of history—one fragile sheet of map at a time.

These are the so-called Wilson Survey maps — delicate records from the colonial era that captured the walled city of Shahjahanabad in remarkable detail.

Faded contours and brittle paper, marked with aging ink, reveal not just topography but a map of lost wells, forgotten streets, and the shifting outlines of a city at the cusp of modernity.

Between 1910 and 1912, British surveyor A.J. Wilson was commissioned by the Survey of India and the erstwhile municipal committee—now the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD)—to conduct a comprehensive survey of the city.

The administration, in its early years, sought better tools to manage land, taxation, and governance within Shahjahanabad's labyrinthine bounds.

Wilson set out with a plane table, alidade, and tripod to survey each kuncha, every building, drain, well, and street, from the Red Fort to the hills of Paharganj.

A senior MCD official said that Wilson's 250-sheet survey formed the first truly comprehensive map of Delhi.

"There was an earlier survey done in 1873, but it was rudimentary. The administration needed something more precise and detailed. Wilson was paid ₹550 a month at the time, which would amount to roughly ₹28 lakh in today's value," the official said.

Each sheet, measuring 2.5 feet by 3 feet, was scaled meticulously and numbered with references to adjoining panels—effectively providing a satellite-like view of the city, nearly half a century before mankind would take a photo from space.