Here in Lancashire UK we have a set of arial photos available as a viewing option in MARIO (maps and related information online), which is a government provided mapping site, very useful for finding footpaths etc. They also have photos from the 1960s and some WW2 images.

I just noticed that the latest update in Google maps has images taken for our area when the sunlight was at a low angle and lots of surface detail is showing. It is worth checking this from time to time as the images are updated every so often. I did find a way of showing the previous images as well.

Robin