diff --git a/CHANGELOG b/CHANGELOG
index a6d01bac9..7246209d4 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG
+++ b/CHANGELOG
@@ -14,6 +14,9 @@ For a complete change history, see the SVN log.
 Current Version (0.6.0-dev, SVN trunk):
 ---------------------------------------
 
+- Filter parsing: Allow numbers in the filter field name.
+  This allows for shapefiles with columns like '1970'.
+
 - Plugins: Added OGR driver for reading all OGR supported formats (kunitoki) (r836) (#170)
 
 - Python: Made available the scale_denominator property from the map in c++ and python (r793)
diff --git a/include/mapnik/filter_parser.hpp b/include/mapnik/filter_parser.hpp
index 269e74f2a..65c7d2841 100644
--- a/include/mapnik/filter_parser.hpp
+++ b/include/mapnik/filter_parser.hpp
@@ -422,7 +422,7 @@ namespace mapnik
                                      [push_string<FeatureT>(self.exprs,self.tr)],
                                      L'\'');
 
-                  property = L'[' >> ( (Letter | L'_' | L':') 
+                  property = L'[' >> ( (Letter | Digit | L'_' | L':') 
                                        >> *NameChar )[push_property<FeatureT>(self.exprs)] >> L']';
 		
                   literal = boolean | number | string_ | property;