Several large historic sea level datasets in the form of scanned images of tide gauge charts and ledgers have been added to the British Oceanographic Data Centre’s National Oceanographic Database. These include, for Sheerness, some of UK's earliest records of sea level data.
Additionally, scanned ledger entries from six locations around Liverpool obtained from the Mersey Docks and Harbour Company and scanned tide gauge charts from Belfast are available.
Long-term sea level records have a wide range of scientific and practical applications. For example, they are important to climate change studies (to give an indication of sea level rise), operational oceanography (looking at storm surges and tides) and civil engineering (for flood defences).