BKS Surveys

Aerial photography covering locations in the UK and Ireland, with small amounts covering places in Germany, the Netherlands and the Channel Islands.

BKS Surveys was established in 1956 in Leatherhead, Surrey. The founding shareholders, J W Barnby, M Keegan and R W Stevens, gave the company its initials B.K.S. At this time the main source of business was aerial photography and topographical survey work. In the 1960's, BKS specialised in undertaking New Town Surveys, which involved surveying large tracts of open farmland to enable planners to design new towns; BKS undertook 60% of all New Town Surveys in the UK.

In 1965, BKS expanded its operation through new offices in Coleraine, Northern Ireland, and in 1967, the Leatherhead production facility was transferred to an enlarged Coleraine unit from which all Overseas and European operations were then controlled. In 1968 BKS became a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Amalgamated Metal Corporation plc (AMC) as a result of a series of mergers in the parent's primary field of metal trading. AMC, from its base as a ring-dealing member of the London Metal Exchange, has grown into a global group which trades, distributes and manufactures metals, metals products and chemicals.

In the 1970's BKS expanded into Nigeria, Yemen, Oman and Saudi Arabia. It grew to employ over 100 people at its head-office in Coleraine.

In 2008, BKS was acquired by the Netherlands-based Fugro group of geotechnical, survey and geosciences companies, and became Fugro-BKS. In 2015, Fugro shed its operation in Coleraine, and BKS (NI) Ltd was then formed through a staff buy-out.

Closed pending accessioning.

Standard terms and conditions for non-commercial use apply; all commercial use must have the prior approval of BKS (NI) Ltd.

Most of the air survey photography created by BKS Surveys Ltd before 1986, around 4,000 films, was purposefully destroyed in 2004 during the relocation of the company to new premises. Over 170 films from pre-1986 were retained, and were giften to NCAP in 2015 along with 1,200 films dating from 1987-2007.