Category Archives: London

A volume of London

This collection of items relating to London is intriguing; four maps and a view, only loosely related, are bound together; all date from the eighteenth century and have a connection to London and its surroundings. The names of two former owners appear on the flyleaf, dating from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but the collection may have been assembled earlier.


One of the maps in particular would be a treasure in any circumstances. John Rocque’s map, “An exact survey of the citys of London, Westminster, ye Borough of Southwark and the country near ten miles round,” is a famous and remarkable map. Made in the early 1740s and published in 1746, it covers London and the surrounding area on 16 sheets, from Harrow on the Hill in the northwest to Chislehurst, then in Kent, in the southeast. The map above is the top left hand (or north west) sheet.

As London has grown so much in the intervening two and a half centuries, the area covered by the map is now all within the conurbation of London. At the time, most of the urban area of London was contained within just one of the 16 sheets, while all around the now familiar names of London suburbs appear as rural villages surrounded by fields. With remarkable prescience, John Rocque created a map, in the mid-eighteenth century, of the London of the future. The sheet above shows the rural villages of Harrow on the Hill, Sudbury and “Wembly Green”, with a beautiful compass rose. Below, from another sheet, we see Wimbledon Common (then Wimbledon Heath) much as it might have been in the young days of the oldest Womble, Uncle Bulgaria.


This particular copy is bound into a volume, but the Bodleian also holds a version that has been joined together to form one single massive sheet; this is shown below, with the Map Curator included for scale. The bound version here differs from the other recorded editions of this map, in that it has the title in English only; other copies have it in Latin and French as well, so it’s possible this is a proof state.
To return to the intriguing London volume, it also includes a reduction of the sixteen sheet map to a single sheet, giving an overview that further demonstrates how tiny the urban area of London was then. This was also made and published by John Rocque.


Rocque also made both printed and manuscript maps of individual estates. The next map in the volume, entitled “The plan of the house, gardens, park & plantations of Wanstead in the county of Essex,” was made in 1735. The mansion house at Wanstead had been completed in 1722, to replace an earlier manor house, and was owned by Earl Tylney. He received the title in 1731, so the map celebrates his new status as well as the beautiful house and grounds. The information at the bottom of the map is in French, so perhaps Rocque anticipated an international audience for this map of a new and fashionable estate; the landscaping had been inspired partly by the Palace of Versailles. There is an intriguing feature in the formal garden, shaped like a map of Great Britain.
The Rocque maps are followed by an early example of a facsimile map (or more accurately, a derivative). In 1667 John Leake had made a map showing the City of London, with the extent of the Great Fire the previous year. George Vertue published a copy, slightly reduced but with some additional information, for the Society of Antiquaries in 1723. It shows the City of London, including the city walls and the boundary of the burnt area; a section of the upper left part of the map including the title is shown here.
Finally, there is a design for Westminster Bridge from 1739, a side elevation accompanied by smaller cross sections and plans. This was drawn by Charles Labelye, the engineer responsible for the first Westminster Bridge. The construction of the bridge began in 1739; by the following century it had deteriorated, and was replaced by the current Westminster Bridge in 1862.

Past owners of the volume have also written personal notes on the blank page inside the cover. Samuel Ashton Thompson Yates has written brief notes on the contents of the volume. Thompson Yates was originally called Samuel Ashton Thompson, but added the Yates in accordance with the will of Joseph Brooks Yates, who was his grandfather, in 1867, so presumably acquired the volume after that date. He was a man of some wealth and influence; he went on to make a substantial donation to the construction of the Health Sciences building at the University of Liverpool, built 1894-9. (This information comes from The Centre for the Study of the legacies of British Slavery at University College London, and more can be seen here.)

In the twentieth century the atlas passed to Elizabeth Phebe Merivale, who notes that she was given it by her brother Hugh Bright in 1904. At some point after that, it arrived in the Bodleian Library, where it will remain.

Map Res. 127

Before and after

Is there a more famous event in the history of London than the fire which started on the 2nd of September 1666? We call this the Great Fire to separate it from numerous conflagrations that had beset the city both before and after. One unexpected outcome of the disaster was the amount of mapping produced in the immediate aftermath, mainly to support the number of different proposals for redevelopment. One of quickest to print was this map, made a mere fortnight after the end of the fire by Valentine Knight.

Several proportions and scheems were offer’d to rebuild the City of London after the great fire. This one was proposed by Val. Knight, 1666. (E) C17:70 London (485)

This hastily made map isn’t the important part of Knight’s proposals, that comes in the accompanying text which sets out his ideas for redevelopment. The map does give an immediate view of the damage caused by the fire though, almost all buildings in the City destroyed, including over 13,000 houses, close to 90 Parish Churches and then some of the major buildings within the City, including St Paul’s. Of his proposals number 9 suggested a way that the rebuilding could be paid for, setting out a scheme of rent and deposits that could be charged on the grander houses. In part of the proposal Knight writes ‘…with all the fines [fees] shall be paid to the King, his heirs and successors, towards the maintenance of his forces by land and sea…’. The idea that the King could profit from the fire so incensed Charles II that Knight was temporally imprisoned.

This neater map was made in the year of the fire by the diarist and contemporary of Samuel Pepys, John Evelyn. Evelyn’s plan allows for a neater layout of the City but was rejected as being too expensive and cumbersome with the large number of different land holders involved, as was Knight’s.

What with the destruction to life and property the fire made any earlier maps outdated, such as this wonderful panorama of the city (stitched together digitally from the three sheets that make up the set for this blog) which was printed earlier in the year of the fire by Wenceslaus Hollar

 

The Prospect of London and Westminster taken from Lambeth. Version I, the original state, 1666, C17:70 London (1365)

The view of the City, from Lambeth Palace from the south bank, shows a host of church spires, with in the middle of them all St Paul’s. All were destroyed so Hollar had to make a new map showing the post-fire cityscape. Here’s the original sheet covering the City

and here’s the revised sheet with the new St Paul’s and Parish Churches.

This image of the new design for the dome of St Paul’s is part of a small set of maps made by Sir Christopher Wren for the rebuilding of the Cathedral.

Old St Paul’s; a section showing the choir with Wren’s suggestion for a dome over the crossing and a new nave. [Together with] Ground plan, 1666. (E) C17:70 London (498).

Hollar produced many maps of the city, including one showing the area destroyed in the flames. An inset shows the fire at its height

Sending cabbies in circles

Joachim Friederichs map of London takes an interesting approach to measuring distances. A series of circles covers the whole map, each one representing ½ a mile in diameter, making it possible, according to the cartographer, to ‘merely count the number of circles between one point and another you have at once the distance travelled’.

The Circuiteer, or distance map of London: invented by J. Friederichs, particularly adapted for cab conveyance c1850. (E) C17:70 London (359)

Measuring distances in maps is a long established practice; from simply putting in distances along roads from point ‘a’ to ‘b’ to concentric circles at a set distance radiating out from a central location to the scale bars and grids so familiar to us from our Ordnance Survey maps. With so many maps of London published Friederichs map stands out with it’s unusual approach.

As well as a distance guide the map serves as a proposal to right what the author sees as a serious case of wrong-doing, the over-charging by Hackney Carriage drivers. In text accompanying the map Frederichs writes ‘The monstrous imposition practised by Cab-Drivers upon the public have long been the subject of general complaint, but of all the plans hitherto suggested to remedy the abuse – and they have been many – not one has been found to ensure. The purpose the Circuiteer, or Distance Map, at least offers  a certain protection against such extortions, as the reader will be enabled to judge for himself, from the following concise explanation.’

The text goes on to give examples of proposed fares, considered reasonable, by mile as opposed to by route, and suggests the buying of pre-paid tickets instead of paying cab fares.

Hackney Carriage fares have featured on numerous maps of the City. This example, A new and exact plan of the cities of London and Westminster & the Borough of Southwark…whereunto are added the rates of Hackney Coachmen and watermen with several other embellishments. By Robert Sayer, 1775. (E) C17:70 London (72),  has, as well as a wonderful map of the City, a small box in the bottom corner giving a ‘Table of Rates’ at both a shilling and eighteen-penny and rates for the Thames watermen. The map also has insets of the major buildings and shows the Ward boundaries.