The second half of the eighteenth century witnessed a revolution in map-making in the British Isles. Changes in agriculture and new industries demanded better maps and from 1775 William Faden, based at Charing Cross in London, was a major figure in this cartographic transformation. County maps had been the staple diet of map-makers for almost two hundred years and Saxton and Speed’s maps had been repeatedly copied from 1574 onwards. From 1750 the county was again the focus for the new maps, but this time to fresh surveys and at a much greater scale - usually one inch to the mile. In one remarkable period from 1765 to 1780 twenty five new English county maps were published, covering 65 percent of the total area of the country.

 

The county maps of this period are used by local historians as a resource but they are under utilised. The reasons for this include the expense of purchasing original maps (rarely for sale at less than a couple of thousand pounds) and the inadequacy of some of the facsimiles that have been produced. Apart from indifferent printing the major problem with these reproductions is that the original map is presented in twenty or so small sheets which inevitably fail to provide an overall view of a county. Not all counties were competently surveyed and few match the high standard of Benjamin Donn’s Devonshire (1765), William Yates’s Lancashire (1786) or Gream’s Sussex (1795). Industrial historians are often disappointed when they examine the county maps with their inconsistent recording of mines and watermills. Similarly landscape historians will find that some county maps excel in their evidence for parkland whereas others are frustratingly inadequate. The county maps were produced by entrepreneurial individuals and it was only with the Ordnance Survey that some standardization of topographical recording was introduced.

 

William Faden’s 1797 map of Norfolk is one of the better county maps and to ensure its easier availability it has been digitally redrawn - see www.fadensmapofnorfolk.co.uk It is the subject of a forthcoming book William Faden and Norfolk’s Eighteenth Century Landscape  by Andrew Macnair and Tom Williamson, Oxbow Books. The map has been analysed by placing its different topographical features into different ‘layers’ which are then viewed after external ‘layers’ eg. soils, archaeological data etc. have been imported. The publication will include a DVD with multiple maps based on the original. Tom Williamson has written ‘William Faden’s map of Norfolk is unquestionably the most important source of evidence we have for the landscape history of the county, not only in the eighteenth century but also in more ancient times’. The map of course has errors and omissions and these have been quantified by comparing it with contemporary maps, particularly those produced for Parliamentary Enclosure Acts. A similar exercise is being undertaken with Joseph Hodskinson’s 1783 map of Suffolk and this will be available at the end of 2010.

 

William Faden’s Map ‘the Country Twenty-five Miles Round London’  (see www.fadensmapoflondon.co.uk) was first published in 1788 and it gives us an idea of the countryside in the vicinity of the capital. It records the existence of open fields within a few miles of Paddington, the extensive heathland to the west of the metropolis and one is immediately made aware of the estates of the landed gentry who wanted to be close to the centre of things, but not too close. The map however was not published following a new survey. William Faden made it his business to acquire the copper engraved plates of county maps and these he has combined to produce this London map. It is thus an amalgam of county maps surveyed between 1755 and 1780 and so is perhaps not as inherently valuable as a documentary source as that of his Norfolk map. The French War Department however thought it was of interest and they copied and re-engraved the map in preparation for an invasion of England.