Author Archives: stuart

“Approaches to Valhalla”

Map – noun 1 a diagrammatic representation of an area of land or sea showing physical features, cities, roads, etc…

This description, from the Oxford English Dictionary, is what we all imagine when we think of a map, and when we look at that map we expect to see a location, whether a detailed town plan or country, continent or world, somewhere that exists both in reality and on paper.

Despite all this there are some outliers in the map world, maps of places that only exist in the mind, maps of imaginary lands. The Bodleian has a nice collection of these maps, of places as diverse as Ambridge, Middle Earth and Utopia, you can read more and see some here Imaginary lands. Within this genre there’s a nice offshoot, a type of map of a made-up place designed to be a guide to cartographers by showing how to portray certain features, or for the map reader to show what the symbols mean (see here and here).

Here’s an example, ‘Colours and symbols used on fair sheets and fair tracing’, issued by the Hydrographic Office of the Navy in 1973. Fair here meaning a document after correction, ready to be used. But is it fair? With this ‘made-up’ map the Hydrographic Office have used real names but in random locations, so Campania, in reality a region of Italy, features, as does the English county of Rutland (though as a town here) and a made-up mountain, Montrosia. Best of all is mention of “Approaches to Valhalla”. The map shows different forms of landscape, both natural and man-made with the symbols used to show those features, and the names are added to give the whole an authentic feel.

The text is laid out in a way similar to the Admiralty charts that this legend sheet is a companion to. Along with a title there is surveying information and notes on depths. But again here there is confusion, and the impression that the cartographers are having fun either at our expense or with a knowing wink if we’re in the know with naval lore and history. There’s no online record for a ‘Lieutenant-Commander R.J. Shackleton, Royal Navy’ so is this a nod to Ernest Shackleton, Royal Naval Lieutenant and Antarctic explorer? And the H.M. Survey Ship “Rattler”? There were a number of Naval ships called Rattler, the most famous built in 1843, one of the first to use a screw propeller.

Here’s a variation on a theme, created by the Canadian military for planning purposes during the Second World War. As with the Hydrographic Office map the topography looks real, but the names given don’t appear to be. The defences, in purple, seem too accurate, with notes saying ‘Third gun reported, but position unknown’, and then the note to the top, ‘This map is unreliable. It has been produced by enlargement from One inch to One miles maps…’. The real location is Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.

The lesson from looking at these maps is if you’re going to make up a place then why not use your imagination. Normal rules don’t apply, you aren’t restricted by actually portraying an existing place or, in the case of Admiralty charts, a coastline or depths. It seems that even in the confines of a serious military organization like the Admiralty there’s room for a bit of fun. The Admiralty still produces legends for their charts, but it’s fair to say that the romance has gone out of the product now.

Speed’s history lessons

John Speed (1552-1629) was a celebrated cartographer whose career spanned Tudor and Stuart Britain, from a stable Elizabethan age to a more turbulent time under James I. Speed’s great work is his atlas ‘The Theatre of the empire of Great Britaine: presenting an exact geography of the Kingdomes of England, Scotland, Ireland and the iles adoiyning…’ . It’s a work full of little vignettes and text to be found amongst his county maps, displaying both his love of history, the volatile times in which the atlas was made and the fact that it seems map-makers can’t abide any blank spaces in their work.

The title-page features five figures in British history, the rough and ready ancient Briton is followed by a Roman, Saxon, Dane then Norman, gradually getting grander with each passing historical phase.

There then follows a short introduction to the work, in which Speed states…And finally the Battels fought either by the forreaine or home-breed Conspirators, I have also added, Where we form under our own vines without fear may behold the prints of indured miseries, fealled with the blood of those times, to the losse of their lives, and liberites…

Here are a few examples of the historical decoration Speed includes in his county maps.

The first image comes from Sussex, and shows the Norman invasion fleet sailing towards Pemsey Harbour with ‘896 ships furnished for war’ in 1066. The famous outcome of the invasion was the Battle of Hastings, 14th October, 1066.

Speed tells us ‘And the 14 of October following, beyng saturdaye, nere Hastings…joyned in battle with Harold, King of England, whoe in ye fielde vallinatly fighting was there slaine by the shott of an arow into his braynes’.

It is fortunate that Speed includes text with these images, if he hadn’t some might be difficult to decipher, as is the case with this next image, from the ‘Hantshire’ county map.

The image shows the Empress Maud, daughter of Henry I, who in the mid 1100s was engaged in civil war with her cousin King Stephen over who should hold the crown. The image shows Maud (also called Matilda) escaping one battle in…well, let Speed explain ‘But success of warr altering Maud the Emperese to save her owne life adventured to throwe the host her enimie, layde in a coffin fayned to be dead, and soe was carryed in a horse litter from Winchester‘.

An unlikely looking Stonehenge appears in the Wiltshire county map, complete with tubular lintels and a hilly landscape. Speed tells us ‘This ancient monument was erected by Aurelius, surnamed Ambrious, King of the Brittaines, whose nobility in the raigne of Vortiger (his countryes scrouge) about ye yere of Christ 475 by treachy of ye Saxons, on a day of parleye were there slaughtered and their bodeyes there interred. In memory whereof this King Aurel caused this trophy to be set up‘.

Speed loved a battle scene, especially, judging by how many there are in his atlas, massed ranks of men wielding pikes. Here’s an image from his Norfolk county map, with text describing rebellions in 1381 and 1549.

This dramatic image is of a battle between Jasper, Earl of Pembroke, and James Butler Earl Ormerod against Edward, Earl of March, 1461, in Herefordshire. ‘Where in befor the battell was strok, appeared visibly in the firmament three sunnes; wihch after a while joyned all together and became as before‘. And, at the bottom, is this a glimpse of Speed at work? Surviving portraits, see below, suggest it could be.

Finally from Gloucestershire a double image, with the top picture showing the hand-to-hand combat between ‘Canut the Dane’ and Edmund Ironside following numerous battles between the two. With no outcome from the fight they ‘accorded to parte ye kingdome which they joyntly governed, till treason took away the lyfe of King Edmund and left ye Dane sole monarch’.

The second battle is from Tewkesbury, 1471, fought between King Edward IV and King Henry VI. This is the first appearance of guns in war in the atlas.

These are just a small selection of images in Speed’s remarkable atlas. A large number of the county maps have pictures of groups of men wielding swords, pikes or ancient rifles. These images reflect both Speed’s fascination with history and the nature of history in the British Isles up to 1611, which was largely one of conquest, invasion or fights for supremacy. Speed’s atlas was available in a number of different formats. Printing was done in black and white with options to have prints then coloured, either just outlining the county (cheaper) or the whole sheet fully coloured (more expensive). The atlas could also be bought bound or unbound. The Bodleian has a number of bound atlases, all in black and white, and some loose maps in colour.

Here’s a sheet covering Bedfordshire showing borders coloured (Gough Maps Bedfordshire 5, from a 1743 reprint including roads, not on Speed’s original) and then Oxfordshire in with the Oxford map in colour ((E) C17:49 (116), 1627 .

Both maps are an improvement on the achievements of the Tudor cartographer Christopher Saxton in both their detail and decoration. Speed included in all his county maps plans of the county towns, which would have been amongst the earliest, if not the earliest, of maps for each location.

Do these images add to the quality of the maps? No, not really, but they do add to the history of the particular county, giving a depth of knowledge to the place, an extra level of understanding, not found in other county maps both before and after.

John Speed The Theatre of Great Britaine: presenting an exact geography of the Kingdomes of England, Scotland, Ireland and the iles adoiyning…’ 1611. Map Res 74.

This map is made very false

Held within the collections here at the Bodleian is a green scrapbook. There’s no clue inside about when the material was gathered together, the only information we have about the material comes from the shelfmark, Wood 276 b. The Wood tells us this is part of a donation of over 900 books left to the Ashmolean Museum, then transferred to the Bodleian, by Anthony Wood (1632-1695), an antiquarian and collector mainly of material relating to Oxford.

The scrapbook features a range of different items; starting with a number of World and country maps by cartographers such as John Speed and Abraham Ortelius the volume also includes plans of the hot and cold baths in Bath, portraits of Oxford dons and religious pamphlets. At roughly halfway through is a map of Oxford, probably the most frustrating we have in the collection.

Oxforde as it now lyeth fortified by his Ma.ties forces an. 1644 is a strange map on a number of levels. Its mixture of scales is off-putting, a large Oxford looms at the top of the Thames running down past smaller representations of Abingdon (‘Abbington’), Wallingford and Reading (‘Reding’) like the head of a carnivorous plant and then there’s the depiction of city itself, with soldiers between the city and siege walls larger than the buildings inside the city. And what to make of the note written in the bottom corner, ‘This map is made very false’, possibly by Wood himself. Not what you want to read when looking for accuracy.

The reason for the map’s overall design is easy to explain. Oxford was a key location in the Civil War, soon after the start in 1642 King Charles I was forced out of London by Parliamentary forces and settled in the city, taking over, along with his Queen and entourage, a number of colleges. This move proved disastrous; resources such as college silver and lead from roofs were stripped and melted down for coins and bullets, the amount of people coming into the city led to over-crowding and a number of dangerous fires and, worse of all, with the King in town the city quickly came under siege. Abingdon, Wallingford and Reading were important towns on the Thames, vital for the success of the Royalists during the War for their strategic value but by the time the map was made all three had either fallen to Parliamentary forces or soon would do so.

It is because of this way of showing Oxford in relation to the three towns that causes the problem with the map, and the reason for the handwritten note at the bottom. All existing maps of the city prior to the war had south at the top, but by including the towns to the south Oxford needed to be shown with a north orientation. To achieve this our unnamed cartographer has taken an earlier, southern orientated, map of the city and seemingly flipped round the orientation. So now, without looking too closely, all seems ok, with the two largest features on the map, the castle and Magdalen Bridge, to the west and east respectively of the city, as they should be.

We’re pretty confident we know how this has been achieved. The earlier map mentioned is the map of Oxford from John Speed’s county map of Oxfordshire, 1611, we know this because the Civil War map uses Speed’s legend and key to identify buildings. Speed has south at the top and it looks like to change this around our cartographer has held a mirror up to the edge of the map and reproduced what he sees. Here’s Speed from his 1611 map, next to what you would see in a mirror.

The problem with doing this though is the flip in orientation only works horizontally. Everything inside the city walls has stayed where they originally were so everything is now upside down. Take for example T, which is at the top of both Speed and the Civil War maps. The T is Christ Church college, which is on the road leading south out of the city on your left as you go past it, on the map it’s both on the wrong side of the road and in the north. The question is, has this been done deliberately, is this an attempt by besieged forces to confuse the enemy? This seems unlikely, Speed’s maps were well known so it’s doubtful that many would have been fooled by the deception. Which leaves one other suggestion. This is just a badly made map, hastily put together using a method not properly thought through. ‘Very false’ indeed.

Anthony Wood is one of those historical characters that more is known about his ways than his achievements. A born and bred Oxford man he grew up during the Civil War, living through the siege and fires that entailed. Wood produced a number of histories of the city and the university, one of which, the Historia et Antiquitates Universtatis Oxoniensis included what is regarded as the best portrayal of the city, David Loggan’s beautifully engraved map of 1675, which includes some of the Civil War defences (and has south at the top!)

Wood often worked with the antiquarian and collector John Aubrey who described Wood, who by this time liked to be called Anthony à Wood, as ‘a shiftless person, roving and maggoty-headed and sometimes a little better than crazed’. Others were less complimentary with one stating that he ‘was always looked upon in Oxford as a most egregious, illiterate, dull blockhead, a conceited, impudent coxcomb’.

‘Oxforde as it now lyeth…’ is just one of a number of beautiful and interesting maps at the Bodleian written by members of the maps team https://bodleianshop.co.uk/collections/all-books/products/treasures-from-the-map-room It’s nearly Christmas after all…

Death by numbers

What we now call trench maps are an organized set of maps at a detailed scale which start on the coast either side of the French and Belgian border and go, numerically, in a north-west to south-east flow down through France and Belgium. Using pre-war French and Belgian maps as a reference these maps show an idealized landscape long since fought over and largely destroyed. Overlaying the topographical information are the trenches of of both the British and German armies, facing each other of what was often a very narrow strip of no-man’s land. German trenches were shown in full while almost always only the front-line of the British trenches would be included for security reasons*.

Fonquevillers, 57D N.E., sheets 1 & 2 (parts of) Feb 1917 C1 (3) [1449]

This map has the village of Monchy au Bois at the top, and is dated to a time between the Battles of the Somme and Arras, with ‘trenches corrected to 27-12-16’, and this sheet is edition 4a. In total there were ten different editions of this sheet made between September 1915 and November 1916, a demand on map production made possible by the Ordnance Survey providing mobile printing presses behind the front-line. The maps show an ordered topographic representation of a pre-war landscape, with villages laid out, streets, churches and countryside. In reality the village would be a ruin, as can be seen in this image from the Imperial War Museum (Image: IWM (Q 61260) of the village in June 1917

THE BRITISH ARMY ON THE WESTERN FRONT, 1914-1918 (Q 61260) A British soldier in the ruins of the village of Monchy-au-Bois, 30 June 1917. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205308715

The main purpose of the maps was to give artillery positions behind the lines accurate co-ordinates for firing on enemy positions, often from information given to them by forward observation posts. Maps would be gridded, areas separated into smaller areas by a designated letter, then each square within the lettered area numbered. These squares were then divided by a broken line into 4, a,b,c and d. Finally, to give as accurate a reference as possible, ‘tick lines’ are included around the edge of the square, 10 on each line. Using this system would give a simple but highly accurate point of reference for artillery to work on.

This is how most trench maps work. Occasionally though an extra help to identify location was given on a map. Key positions would be numbered in red circles. These positions would be at junctions or corners of trenches, areas where troop movements would slow down and soldiers would inevitably bunch up. In a calculated way artillery fire would be targeting areas which would give the maximum casualties amongst enemy forces for the minimum shell use. These are extracts from the trench map showing the grid system in place and then the circled numbers at the points of junctions.

*Here’s an example of a trench map with both British and German trenches, La Bassėe, sheet 44a N.W. 1, 1918. With the extra trenches these maps become more than just an historical record of the course of a battle at a particular time. With named trenches they are part of the social history of the First World War as well.

The itinerary of Jan Huygen van Linschoten

Maps come in all sorts of formats and sizes, and they also come in all sorts of different mediums as well; globes, atlases and single sheets. As well as these early printed maps are often to be found in itineraries, those wonderful descriptions of early exploration, full of tales of new lands, new people, new customs. It was often in these itineraries that readers would first see in illustrations the strange new sights that they may have only heard about previously – imagine being told what an elephant looked like, and then seeing a picture of one – and the maps, though important in themselves as cartographic records, were more often than not secondary to the written narrative and illustrations.

One such itinerary is in the office at the moment. Jan Huygen van Linschoten (1563-1611) was, as it seems with a lot of people we read about from these times, a bit of a polymath. Dutch merchant, traveller, writer and, intriguingly, a spy as well. Spy because he travelled extensively through Portuguese areas of influence in the Far East, especially around the Spice Islands of Indonesia, and then wrote about his travels in a book published in 1596, Itinerario, voyage ofte schipvaert, van Ian Huygen van Linschoten naer Oost ofte Portugaels Indien inhoudende een corte beschryvinghe der selver landen ende zee-custen… (Itinerary, voyage or navigation, of Ian Huygens from Linschoten to the East or Portuguese Indies containing a short description of the same lands and sea coasts…).

Here’s a beautiful double hemisphere World map from the start of the book with representations of the 4 continents in the corners. The map is by Jan Baptista Vrient, a Dutch geographer and cartographer.

There are a number of regional maps throughout the work, the most important considering what Linschoten’s work was dealing with was of the Far East, and the Spice Islands. The itinerary pre-dates the Dutch influence in the region but only by a few years, and the work had an influence on Dutch ambitions in the region. By the early 1600s the Dutch had started to gain control of the spice trade with the setting up of the Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie, the Dutch East India company in 1602.

As can be seen these are beautiful maps, hand-coloured and for the time accurate depictions of the regions shown.

As well as maps the books contain illustrations of flora and fauna, people and customs. Here’s a page showing different fruit trees (bamboo, mangrove and durian)

Another page has illustrations of temples and religious practises, including a pagoda and a mosque.

Itineraries have a long history, dating back to classical times in the form of a periplus, a list of destinations on a journey which would often then be expanded by Greek and other writers into more general histories through to itineraries like the one in this blog to works on travel writing as a form of social commentary (such as Daniel Defoe’s ‘Tour thro’ the whole island of Great Britain’ (1724)) on to the current trend for travel writing as a form of entertainment. Linschoten’s itinerary is a wealth of information and illustrations of the people, customs, trade and geography of the Far East. It’s just one of a number of books he wrote in the 1590s about the region and of the voyage to get there along the east coast of Africa. An English translation was published in 1598.

And here’s our spy, looking quite dapper in his ruff and whiskers. It’s wonderful to imagine the adventures and sights seen by Linschoten on his travels.

Italian maps from the Eastern front

We’ve written about Stalingrad before, maps showing different aspects of a battle which was a turning point in the Second World War, but a recent donation of maps to the library are of sufficient importance to warrant a new piece to add to these blogs on thematic mapping and name changes.

The maps are German army maps, mostly at 1:1,000,000 scale but almost all have manuscript annotations added to show the progress, positions and then retreat of the Italian 8th Army. The area covered is mainly northern Ukraine, generally from Crimea across to Stalingrad and north as far as Minsk. Front-lines, troop deployment, strength of remaining forces, depots and command centres are all shown, and as most of the maps are dated progress day by day can often be plotted.

German, Italian and Romania advances towards Stalingrad, 15th July 1942 (?), C40:6 (181) 1a

These maps are of historical importance. As well as Italian forces armies from Croatia, Hungary and Romania were on the Eastern Front but the main focus on Stalingrad has mostly been on the vast number of German troops that fought on the Eastern Front. These maps will go some way to shine a light on the other forces involved on the Axis side.

Soviet counterattacks and Stalingrad pocket, circa 9th Jan 1943, C40:6 (181) 1a

The maps are also amongst the most poignant in the collection. These maps show Axis forces advance from the Don with front-lines moving closer to the Volga before coming to a stop at Stalingrad. Then, with the launch of Operation Uranus in November 1942 Soviet forces push back Axis forces, and the front-line moves back towards the Don, the pocket around Stalingrad slowly diminishes along with the numbers of troops shown behind the retreating lines, until finally the pocket disappears and the words ‘Resti 6th Army‘ are crossed out in red pencil (Resti means ‘remains’ in Italian).

Stalingrad pockets, circa 13th Jan and 30th Jan, 1943. C40:6 (181) 1a

4th Feb 1943 C40:6 (181) 1

Maps such as these are rare in libraries such as the Bodleian. By their nature annotated maps made during war-time are often lost or irreparably damaged in the confusion of battle, especially when that battle involves a retreat such as the one involving the troops featured on the maps. We’re lucky to have such an important collection come to Oxford.

Good fences make good neighbours

In Robert Frost’s poem Mending wall two neighbours walk the shared boundaries of their properties, checking on the condition of the wall separating their land and making repairs where necessary. At one point the narrator teases his neighbour on the need for the wall, “My apple trees will never come across and eat the cones under his pines, I tell him”. The neighbour replies, simply and memorably, “Good fences make good neighbours”.

Frost loves the phrase so much that it’s repeated again, to close the poem*, and I’m reminded of this when looking at these two estate maps, of Down Manor from 1718 and Mowden Hall, 1762, both in Essex. Both are typical examples of an estate plan, are in manuscript form and show the holdings and field names of each estate (with sizes in acres, roods and perches). The connection with Frost comes with both showing boundaries in two different colours, according to ownership and according to responsibility of maintenance, to mark the outer boundaries of each estate. Any boundary dispute in the future would be easily settled with reference to the map. The importance of boundary fences are obvious, the need to keep animals out of certain fields and in others, as a way of separating good land from not so good and as a way of marking the limit of your land from your neighbour. The Down Manor map nicely calls the fencing surrounding the property ‘Out fencing’.

A by-product of this in both maps is that those neighbours surrounding both Down Manor and Mowden Hall are named, so for instance we can see that the wonderfully named Mr Grump owed land to the south-east of Mowden Hall and the equally well-named Thomas Clutterbuck owed land just north of Down Hall, giving us a connection with those alive at the time the map was made.

Estate maps show the land owned by the local manor or estate, and are almost always privately commissioned works, which often lead to beautiful one-off maps such as the Down Manor map. These maps are historically important as they give a pre-enclosure view of the landscape and a record of who farmed this landscape. One of the most famous of all the estate maps is held in the Bodleian, of Laxton in Nottinghamshire, from 1635. We tell its story here and we’ve blogged previously about estate maps here, here, and here.

Most of the field names are explanatory, sometimes just size or use (Gravel Pit Field, Calves Pasture and so on) but some are more interesting. Great and Little Hungerdown in the Mowden map would suggest a poor field for growing crops on and needing much manure and feeding to make viable, while Bury Mead is a field near a moat or fortified building and Rushey pasture would be a poorly drained field, not much good for growing crops but ok for growing rushes, useful in chair making and hatching.

The Mowden map was first surveyed in 1723 by Daniel Halls, who is described in a dictionary of surveyors at the Bodleian as a Philomath in the year he surveyed the map. A Philomath is someone who loves learning. Halls’ map was then copied, the term used on the map is ‘diminish’d’, by Edward John Eyre in 1762. The owner of Mowden Hall, Brabezon Aylmer, also owed the paper mill near but outside his main land-holding. We can tell he owns the mill because the land included with the mill is delineated by the yellow line that the legend tells us ‘that the fence in the outward bounds of this map where it belongs to this estate is coloured with yellow…’.

A true map of the lands belonging to Mowden Hall together with a paper mill as they are situate lying and being in the several parishes of Ulting, Hatfield, Boreham & Little Baddow, Essex, belonging to Brabzon Aylmer, esq…1762. MS C17:28 (40)

Description of the Manor of Down Hall, situate and lying in the Parish of Rayleigh in the County of Essex. Containing altogether 170 acres, 1 rood and 2 perches being parcel of the possession of Edw. Downs Esq. and herein particularly measured in the year of our Lord 1718 by Will. Cole. 1718. MS C17:28 (88)

*Frost’s poem can be read here, it’s worth it Mending Wall | The Poetry Foundation

Mountain man

Of the three main ways that material comes into the library; legal deposit, purchase and donation, donations are usually the best. More often than not these are older maps, sometimes with annotations or with a good story attached (here). So it was exciting to get a box recently from an Oxford resident, of maps that belonged to her grandfather. The maps are a mixture of locations and dates, but most are of hilly and mountainous places.

Born in Florence in 1889 to a British family John Alfred Spranger (J.A.S from now on) was a man of many talents. A skilled photographer (examples of his work can be found here Fragmented Archives: an Example of the Photographs of J.A. Spranger in the SPHS Collection – British School at Athens ), an engineer and a cartographer. He also published works on Greek manuscripts and took part in the publishing of a version of the Greek New Testament. And he liked to climb mountains.

Inevitably the maps concentrate on his life in the mountains, and are mostly of areas close to Italy. Maps of mountainous regions, with the need to show relief and dramatic landscapes, are often beautifully engraved and as a result usually look wonderful (see the map at the end of the blog). Here’s a 1896 map of the Mont Blanc Massif, part of the Alps that J.A.S.started climbing in the years leading up to World War One.

La Chaine du Mont-Blanc, 1896, C21:44 (54)

J.A.S. took part in an Italian expedition led by Filippo de Filippi to the Himalayas, Karakoram and Eastern Turkestan between 1913 and 1914, finishing the expedition late into that most ominous of years. A book by de Filippi, published in 1932 and including a chapter and photographs by J.A.S., who did the majority of the surveying work on the expedition, concludes with this poignant last paragraph ‘So we had to part from our English colleagues, Wood and Spranger, who left for Salonika to embark for Brindisi. We Italians went to Budapest and on December 18th we crossed the borders of our country after more than sixteen months of absence’.

The collection is mainly made up of European mapping, with a number for the Mont-Blanc and Swiss Alps regions. There are also two beautiful photographic panoramas, one of which is of the Gornergrat region, in the Pennie Alps of Switzerland. The panorama is too long to show well, but here’s an extract that includes the Matterhorn

Zermatt, panorama vom Gornergrat, c1930, C39:7 d.1

In 1924 J.A.S. travelled to Canada, and started climbing in the Cariboo Mountain range in British Columbia. He seems to have been the first to climb a peak called Flat Mountain as, soon after, this peak was renamed Mount Spranger by the Canadian Survey Department. During his time in British Columbia J.A.S. bought some maps of the Cariboo area which are in the donation and, more importantly, used his cartographic skills to make a couple of manuscript maps of the area. Here’s the official 1973 1:50,000 map showing Mount Spranger

and here’s the manuscript map by J.A.S. of the same area, with Flat Mtn. at top left.

Canada 1:50,000 sheet 94 A/15, 1973, F4 (21) and Sketch map of Mitchell Lake, c1924, MS F4:11 (241)

Finally an extract from the ‘Theodulpass’ sheet of the Topographischer Atlas der Schweiz’ 1;50,000 sheet (1944, C39:28 (21)) showing the Matterhorn, one of the highest mountains in Europe and also one of the deadliest of all climbs in terms of deaths in attempt of any in the World. Proof, if still needed, of the beauty to be found in maps of mountains.

A change of address

In 1792 the noted engraver and cartographer John Cooke (1765-1845) moved from Drury Lane, London to Mill Hill. In a novel approach to a change of address card for existing and new clients Cooke made this map: ‘He has taken this method to inform them that he has removed from London to Mill Hill’.

A new map of the roads from London to Mill Hill & Barnet. By John Cooke, Engraver, at Mill Hill, Middx. 1792 Gough Maps Middlesex 46.

Cooke at this time must have been in his late twenties; he had left his apprenticeship some five years before. He had been apprenticed initially to bookbinder Mary Cooke (most likely a family connection) before transferring to the engraver William Wells and then John Russell, the latter an important cartographer and engraver of maps. Cooke had now embarked on what was to be a successful and productive career, with apprentices of his own and many works to his name. Although Mill Hill is today very much a suburb of London, at that time the area’s distance of eight or nine miles from Cooke’s previous base in the City would have seemed considerable. The map is very beautifully engraved, and serves to advertise the quality of Cooke’s work. Hills are indicated by delicate hachuring, and the hand colouring is sufficient to enhance the map without obscuring the fine engraving. The text panel explains that he has removed from London to Mill Hill, but that he is still at his customers’ service, since ‘the Mill Hill Errand Cart sets out every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday from the Bull Inn, Holborn at one, and at two o’clock from the Cock in Tottenham Court Road…’ Distances are noted with tiny numbers along the roads. The map demonstrates how easily communications may be carried between London and Mill Hill. Cooke’s trade card at the time also included a detailed map of the area around his house.

Cooke was to switch between the country around the city and London a number of times. By the end of the century he was back in central London and employed to engrave charts for the Admiralty and for numerous private publishers. But we can only conclude that London living did not suit Cooke, for by 1817 he had made what was to be a permanent move to Plymouth, Devon, where he spent the rest of his reasonably long life. This seems like a surprising choice considering how central to the publishing industry London was but a large amount of Cooke’s work was to do with navigation and shipping and after his move he made numerous maps on Plymouth as the area grew in importance with the building and developing of new or existing docks by the Navy.

Here’s Cooke’s map of the new Breakwater being built in Plymouth Sound, which in 1806 had an estimated cost of £1,170,000 (£88,000,000 at current rate)

Cooke’s guide to Plymouth Sound and Breakwater, 1806. G.A. Devon 8° 341 (9)

Cooke’s most famous work, The Universal Atlas, was published in 1802 when Cooke was in Howland Street, London. Cooke made the maps, ‘accurately delineated by an eminent geographer‘ while the Rev. Thomas Smith wrote the introduction and the descriptions. Along with maps of the continents and countries there are maps of the Solar System and a ‘geographical clock’ designed by Cooke which works by moving the marker on the inner dial to a location, which then makes this location noon, from there all the other times can be read (so here it’s noon in London, so 1am in the Great South Sea).

The universal atlas, and introduction to modern geography, 1802, Gough Gen. top. 202

Many of Cooke’s customers from his later career appear to have been based locally in the West Country, although he had previously worked for some of the major London mapmakers. He also appears to have branched out into copperplate printing.

With the Mill Hill map Cooke shows his skills as both a cartographer and an engraver and this is as much an advertisement of his abilities as a notice of the change in address. He also cleverly makes the best use of the area he wants to show by including the change in angle north of Finchley and Hendon to come up with this beautifully designed work, allowing for text and compass rose to be shown in opposite corners. This strip approach to mapping brings to mind John Ogilby’s ground-breaking road maps of almost a hundred years before (see Measuring distances, a wheel or a chain? | Bodleian Map Room Blog).

Our Cooke, John, was one of a number of Cooke’s active in London at this time. His brother Stephen (1768-1854) was an apprentice to John in the 1780s. He remained in London and also had a long map engraving career, employed by such well known map publishers as William Faden and Laurie & Whittle. The brothers William Cooke (1778-1855) and George (1781-1834), no relation to john and Stephen, both worked with map-makers such as Arrowsmith as well as non-map engraving work.

Four seasons

Dating from circa 1670 this is a map from the Dutch Golden Age, when ships set out from the Netherlands to trade and set up colonies. The Dutch East India Company had trading posts throughout the Indies, controlled the spice trade and, for a time, was the only nation to have a trade link with Japan, while the Dutch West India Company were doing similar in South America. Trade and cartography went hand-in-hand, with high quality maps by the leading cartographers of the day helping in the exploration and navigation of these far-off places.

Nova orbis tabula, in lucem edita…F. de Wit, c1670. Map Res 110

Frederick de Wit’s Nova Orbis Tabula… is a lovely though fairly typical example of a World double-hemisphere map, but what is of interest are the wonderful representations of the seasons in each corner. These insets also feature, in three of the four, representations of the continents* as well.

Spring is represented by a maiden, often Persephone, the symbol of spring growth. To her left is a bull, the animal symbol along with a horse for Europe.

Summer is Ceres, Goddess of the harvest who represents Earth’s natural abundance. She’s also the mother of Persephone. Ceres often appears on maps and her control of the growth, harvest and dying back of plants during the year reflected human existence on earth. The lion is a symbol for Africa, and the scorpion in this case is one of the animals associated with Ceres.

With the harvest done Autumn is a time to celebrate, Bacchus represents this season, drinking wine and supported by a pair of satyrs, themselves representations of lust and mischief. Another scorpion, this time for Africa.

Finally Winter, whose symbol is an old King wrapped up against the cold. No animal representation for America, which is usually a crocodile or armadillo but the male goat can also be used as a symbol for winter, when they are generally more active as this is when female goats come on heat. Which leads to fertility, which leads us back to spring, and growth and abundance, and the cycle goes round again.

Symbolism is an important and fascinating part of cartography. At the very least these allegorical pictures fill what would be empty spaces but at the time the audience for the maps would have understood both the meaning and the message. The seasons seem an obvious topic for a map, as they signify not just the changes in the weather and the time of the year but mark the earth’s progress in space and around the Sun. But people would have also understood how this connection with time through the year was also linked with our journey through life, it’s no coincidence that Spring is shown as a young maid, Summer an Earth Goddess, Autumn an older man and finally an old man in Winter.

This is also a blog about people, with a strong connection to Oxford and the Bodleian. De Wit’s map seems to be a smaller version of larger World map with the same title from 1660. The map is the first in a collection of maps which have been bound together at some point, in an unknown hand the title is given as ‘The first volume in a collection of more than one hundred maps of all the Kingdoms and Provinces in Europe by severall authours…1691′. The connection with Oxford, and the probable reason for the volume ending up here at the Bodleian is that the atlas once belonged to William Charles Cotton, brother of Sarah Cotton. Sarah married Sir Henry Acland, one-time physician to the Prince of Wales (the future Edward VII, see this blog ) and Librarian of the Radcliffe Science Library. Acland wrote a report in 1854 about cholera epidemics in the city, which included one of the earliest disease maps published in Britain (more on this map here) .

In 1839 Cotton was ordained a priest and in 1841 he sailed to New Zealand to be Chaplain to the newly appointed Bishop of New Zealand. He was also a noted apiarist, and wrote a number of books on bee-keeping (including the wonderfully titled ‘My Bee Book’, published in 1842 and written when he was a student at Christ Church in Oxford). Cotton spent seven years in New Zealand before returning to Britain. At the front of the atlas are a letter and a note from Cotton. The hand-writing for both is very hard to read, and parts of the letter have lines written over lines at right-angles, but both are to Henry Coxe, Bodley’s Librarian, in 1878 offering the collection of maps to the library, or ‘if not wanted to be returned to Mrs. Acland’. The Acland’s lived at numbers 39-41 Broad Street which in a remarkable coincidence was one of the houses knocked down for the building of what is now the Weston Library, part of the Bodleian Library, and where the maps are stored (and from where I’m writing this piece).

* Since this blog went live a colleague in Theology has pointed out an alternative view of some of the figures represented, which makes more sense, and that is that the signs of the Zodiac are represented. So in Spring the bull also represents Taurus and the ram Aries. In Summer the scorpion is more likely a lobster, which would represent Cancer and the lion Leo. In Autumn the scales represent Libra, the lion Leo and the archer Sagittarius. Finally Winter, with the fishes Pisces and the goat Capricorn.

If that’s not enough, how many other maps feature someone being sick from too much drink?