Stock Id :15324

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An early road map of Chelmsford to Bury St Edmunds and Saffron Walden

OGILBY, John.

The Road from Chelmsford in Essex to St. Edmonds-Bury in Suffolk & Safron-Walden in Essex
London, c.1675, second state. Coloured. 330 x 445mm.

Two complete routes, also marking Braintree, Thaxted & Dunmow. The title cartouche is a pastoral scene.
Plate 92 from Ogilby's 'Britannia', the first national road-atlas of any country in Western Europe. It was composed of maps of seventy-three major roads and cross-roads, presented as trompe-l'oeil scrolls, each with a decorative title cartouche, in this case a shepherd, shepherdess and flock of sheep. It was the first English atlas on a uniform scale, at one inch to a mile, and the 'mile' Ogilby used became the national standard, the statute mile of 1,760 yards. Ogilby claimed that 26,600 miles of roads were surveyed in the course of preparing the atlas, on foot using the surveyor's wheel depicted in the cartouche, but only about 7,500 were actually depicted in print. It was only after the 'Britannia' that roads started being shown on county maps.

Second state, with plate number bottom right.
Stock ID : 15324

£320

£320

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INDEX

Stock Id :15324

Download Image

An early road map of Chelmsford to Bury St Edmunds and Saffron Walden

OGILBY, John.

The Road from Chelmsford in Essex to St. Edmonds-Bury in Suffolk & Safron-Walden in Essex
London, c.1675, second state. Coloured. 330 x 445mm.

Two complete routes, also marking Braintree, Thaxted & Dunmow. The title cartouche is a pastoral scene.
Plate 92 from Ogilby's 'Britannia', the first national road-atlas of any country in Western Europe. It was composed of maps of seventy-three major roads and cross-roads, presented as trompe-l'oeil scrolls, each with a decorative title cartouche, in this case a shepherd, shepherdess and flock of sheep. It was the first English atlas on a uniform scale, at one inch to a mile, and the 'mile' Ogilby used became the national standard, the statute mile of 1,760 yards. Ogilby claimed that 26,600 miles of roads were surveyed in the course of preparing the atlas, on foot using the surveyor's wheel depicted in the cartouche, but only about 7,500 were actually depicted in print. It was only after the 'Britannia' that roads started being shown on county maps.

Second state, with plate number bottom right.
Stock ID : 15324

£320

£320

Return To Listing