Covent Garden and Soho from an important large-scale survey of London

HORWOOD, Richard.

[Covent Garden, Soho & Bloomsbury.] C. 2.
London: 1799. 570 x 540mm.

A map of London's West End from what Howgego describes as the 'largest and most important London map of the eighteenth century', on a scale of 26 inches to a mile. On the left edge are Bedford Square, Soho Square and Compton Street, Leicester Square and Haymarket; at the top of the map are the British Museum, Bloomsbury Square and Red Lion Square. Bottom right is the Thames, with The Strand, the Savoy and Somerset House, with the Adam Brother's Adelphi development. Other features are Covent Garden and Lincoln's Inn Fields.
Horwood's intention was to mark each house's number (a practice started in 1735), but this was abandoned as impractical. He started his scheme in 1790, expecting to be finished by 1792: by 1794 he was apologising to his subscribers (including George III); in 1798 he received a loan of £500 from the Phoenix Fire-Office, for whom Horwood worked as a surveyor, to finish the map. However this assistance was not enough to stop Horwood dying in poverty in 1803.

HOWGEGO: 200, and pp.21-22.
Stock ID : 24405