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Chapter 5
ROAD MAPS, ATLASES & ROAD BOOKS
To the modern eye roads are as vital a part of a map as rivers, place names or mountain ranges and yet maps had been produced for centuries before roads were considered an essential feature of cartography. At sea, as we have described elsewhere, portulan charts were in common use in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and had reached a high degree of sophistication, but with one or two important exceptions, there was no counterpart for land maps.
In a sense, mobility on land in early times was not the essential factor it has become in the last century or so, but when one thinks of the hazards and dangers of travelling, guidance was far more necessary than in our own day. In fact, in spite of primitive roads and restrictions imposed by lack of transport, movement must have involved great numbers of people: for centuries emissaries and armies moved across the face of Europe and Asia, wool traders came even from Turkey to the Cotswolds, pilgrims and crusaders covered enormous distances. In the British Isles there were the drovers' or drift roads along which cattle were driven from the North and West to the fairs and markets near the centres of population as well as the Salt Ways used throughout the Middle Ages for the distribution of salt from Cheshire to all parts of England.
As might be expected, it was the Romans who produced a remarkably practical and accurate map of the 50,000 or more miles of roads in the Empire, probably in the third century AD. Known as the Peutinger Table, from the name of a sixteenth-century German antiquarian who possessed a thirteenth-century copy, now in Vienna, it was in the form of a roll about 22 feet long and a foot wide, showing roads in straight lines with distances between stages. By its nature, the shapes of most countries and land masses were much distorted, but no doubt it served its purpose as an efficient guide.
In Britain, as elsewhere, the Roman roads fell into decay over the centuries and by the Middle Ages were reputedly among the worst in Europe. Indeed, more often than not, they were narrow winding lanes or bridle tracks between cultivated fields and, in the absence of hedges and fences, frequently changed course as weather conditions or changes in land ownership dictated. Perhaps these factors impelled the English chronicler, Matthew Paris, and the monks of the Benedictine Abbey of St Albans to draw, about the year 1250, a crude but picturesque map of the country included in their History of the English. Although not a road map as such, it was clearly intended as a guide rather than a true geographical representation of England and part of Scotland. Rivers and river crossings are shown prominently and the positions of towns are distorted so that they appear almost in a straight line from the North to Dover, the intention being to show travellers, whether pilgrims, crusaders or traders, the shortest route to Dover and the Continent.
A century later appeared the 'Gough' map of Great Britain (so named after its eighteenth-century discoverer) which can be said to be a real map, numerous roads being shown diagrammatically in red, leading from town to town with staging distances. There is evidence that the 'Gough' map and copies of it were in use 200 years later and yet, even so, roads were still ignored by Saxton and Speed in spite of their dependence on them for carrying out countrywide surveys.
Although road maps were so neglected in England and elsewhere, there was a notable exception in Germany where, in 1492, Ehrhard Etzlaub, an instrument maker, compiled decorative woodblock road maps of the surroundings of Nuremberg and other German cities, as well as a much larger map of Central Europe known as 'The Rome Way'. This is thought to have been prepared in time for the Holy Year celebrations held in Rome in the year 1500 its obvious purpose being to indicate routes from as far away as Denmark in the North, Paris in the West and Poland in the East, to Rome - which, incidentally, was placed towards the top of the map with North at the bottom. Etzlaub's ideas, like those of the anonymous compiler of the 'Gough' map in England, were exceptional innovations, far ahead of their time, and were not followed up for a century or more.
In the absence of any indication of roads on their maps, we must assume that English travellers had some means of guidance in their travels and we do indeed find that in this period there were in existence 'road books' which usually consisted of brief descriptions of the countryside through which roads passed and, of more importance, details of the main 'high Wais' with distances between stopping-places. Of these books the earliest was the Itinerary of John Leland written about 1535-45, followed by a number of others published in the last quarter of the century, notably Holinshed's Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland, first printed in 1577, containing tables of roads and stage distances, which were frequently copied by other publishers.
In France, road books in similar style were published from about 1522 onwards, one of them by Jean Bernard, printed in Paris in 1579, being of particular interest. A short history of England and Scotland, it contained a volume giving details of many main roads in England and Wales with occasional warnings of the dangers of thieves and brigands. The earliest sheet map produced in France showing the post roads of that country was published in 1632 by Melchior Tavernier, copies of which are extremely rare. It was also printed in later atlases by Nicolas Sanson from 1654 onwards. In Central Europe, if we ignore the very early maps by Ehrhard Etzlaub (c. 1500) already mentioned, the first road map covering the German States, Switzerland, the Low Countries and bordering lands was published by Johann and Conrad Jung (1641) followed by others by Johann Ulrich Muller (1692) and Johann Peter Nell (1709-11).
In England it was left to John Norden (1593-98) and Philip Symonson (1596), contemporaries of Saxton, to be the first to show roads on half a dozen county maps but few examples have survived, and their work was not following up by either Kip or Hole in preparing the maps for Camden's Britannia or by Speed in his atlases. In fact, the only works of any note in this field were Norden's An Intended Guyde for English Travailers (1625), in which he demonstrated for the first time the use of triangular distance tables much as we use them today, and Matthew Simmons' A Direction for the English Traviller (engraved by Jacob van Langeren), a series of very small maps published in 1635. An edition with enlarged maps was issued in 1643 by Thomas Jenner who is also known for the Quartermaster's Map of England and Wales, so called because of its use in the Civil War. The Quartermaster's Map continued in use until late in the century but by that time much more detailed and up-to-date guidance was required to meet travellers' demands.
From about 1668 sheet maps showing post roads and 'cross-roads' in England and Wales appeared, of which the most important were by Robert Walton/Thomas Porter (c. 1668), William Berry/ Wenceslaus Hollar (c. 1669-76, 4 sheets), John Adams (c. 1677-79, 12 sheets, and 1685, 2 sheets) and Robert Walton (1680). John Adams also published an Index Villaris, a gazetteer of cities and market towns with distance tables. For practical purposes, however, there were obvious limitations to the amount of detail which could be included on sheet maps and it was not long before these defects were remedied by the invention of the 'strip map' by John Ogilby.
In 1675 Ogilby published, to 'Great Applause', the Britannia - a Geographical and Historical Description of the Principal Roads thereof consisting of 100 maps of the principal roads of England and Wales, engraved in strip form, giving details of the roads themselves and descriptive notes of the country on either side, each strip having a compass rose to indicate changes of direction. According to advertisement his survey was said to have measured over 25,000 miles of road (in fact, the maps covered 7,500 miles), all surveyed on foot, of course, with a 'perambulator' or measuring wheel to log the distances from place to place. He used throughout the standard mile of 1,760 yards, which had been introduced by statute in 1593 but which had never supplanted the old long, middle and short miles, an endless source of confusion to travellers. There were four issues of the Britannia in 1675-76 and a reprint in 1698.
As Ogilby's maps primarily indicated the post roads of England and Wales it is, perhaps, an opportune moment to note that, contrary to the generally accepted idea that our posts started in 1840 with Hill's 'Penny Post', there had, in fact, been a system of Royal Posts ever since the time of Edward I, and in the early part of the sixteenth century a Master of the Posts was appointed by Henry VIII. This postal system was exclusively for royal use but in 1660 a 'Letter Office of England and Scotland' was established for public mail and a distribution network using the post roads soon became widely used. Clearly Ogilby's maps, and those which soon followed, met a great and growing need. In 1676 Robert Morden, inspired by Ogilby's strip maps, issued packs of playing cards giving a very fair indication of the main roads in each county and from then onwards practically all county maps included roads even though the roads themselves were still hardly recognizable as such. Only when Turnpike Trusts were set up with the express purpose of levelling charges to offset the costs of road improvements was there any real change. As a result people began to travel for pleasure rather than of necessity with a consequent demand for road books and atlases which were issued in ever increasing quantity and variety, usually in quarto, octavo or pocket size volumes; Ogilby's Britannia, splendid though it was in its original form, was far too cumbersome as a travelling companion. Among the most popular works in the early part of the eighteenth century were those by John Senex, and John Owen and Emanuel Bowen, followed by Daniel Paterson, William Faden and, at the end of the century, by John Cary, the most popular of all. Not only were their guides constantly enlarged and re-issued in numerous editions but there is evidence that some individual editions ran to as many as 5/10,000 copies.
In the same period, in France, Germany and Italy, cartographers developed their own methods of compiling road maps, generally following the style of Tavernier's Post Road Map of France (1632), already mentioned, rather than Ogilby's strip maps, although some examples in that form were published in France and Italy. Notable examples of Continental maps, often in many editions, were published by N.de Fer (1700), A. H. Jaillot (1711), L. Denis (1768, 1774), L. C. Desnos (1761 France and 1766 England), J. B. Homann (1714), C. Weigel (1745) and C. G. Rossi (c.1703).
The following list includes brief details of the better known road books and atlases of England and Wales published from 1676 onwards.
JOHN OGILBY and WM MORGAN
- 1676 The Traveller's Pocket Book (no Maps)
WILLIAM BERRY
- 1669-76 A New Mapp of the Kingdome of England and Principlaitie of Wales Large road map (620 X 790 mm) engraved by Wenceslaus Hollar
- 1679 Grand Roads of England
ROBERT WALTON
- c. 1680 A New Mapp of England and Wales to which the roads or highwqys are playnly layd forth
PHILIP LEA
- c. 1687 The Traveller's Guide - A New Map of England and Wales with the direct and Cross roads
- 1690-92 Angliae Totius Tabula (John Adams)
- 1695 A Travelling Mapp of England containing the Principall Roads
THOMAS GARDNER
- 1719 A Pocket Guide for the English Traveller
JOHN SENEX
- 1719-75 An actual survey of all the Principal Roads of Englandand Wales - Ogilby's maps reduced in size.
JOHN OWEN and EMANUEL BOWEN
- 1720-64 Britannia Depicta or Ogilby Improved
I. V. KIRCHER
- 1730 The Traveller's Guide or Ogilby's Roads Epitomized
JOHN ROCQUE
- 1746 The English Traveller
- 1763 The Traveller's Assistant
JOHN BOWLES
- 1757 Roads through England Delineated
THOMAS KITCHIN
- 1767 Post Chaise Companion
- 1783 Traveller's Guide through England & Wales
DANIEL PATERSON
- 1771-1832 A New and Accurate Description of all the Direct and Principal Cross Roads in Great Britain
- 1772-79 Paterson's Travelling Dictionary
- 1785-1807 Paterson's British Itinerary
CARRINGTON BOWLES
- 1772 Atlas of Road Maps
- 1782 Bowles Post Chaise Companion
THOMAS JEFFERYS
- 1775 Itinerary or Traveller's Companion
MOSTYN JOHN ARMSTRONG
- 1776 An actual survey of the Great Post Roads between London and Edinburgh
TAYLOR and SKINNER
- 1776 A Survey of the Great Post Roads between London, Bath and Bristol
WILLIAM FADEN
- 1781-1833 The Roads of Great Britain
GEORGE WALPOOLE
- 1784 New British Traveller
JOHN CARY
- 1790-1828 Traveller's Companion The maps in this work, prepared at the request of the Postmaster General, were based on a completely new survey of the turnpike roads of England and Wales, carried out by John Cary from 1780 onwards with the assistance of Aaron Arrowsmith. The Traveller's Companion became immensely popular and had a considerable influence on the formative work of the Ordnance Survey Office, which was established in 1791.
- 1798-1828 Cary's New Itinerary
LAURIE and WHITTLE
- 1806 New Travellers' Companion
EDWARD MOGG
- 1817-22 A Survey of the High Roads of England and Wales
JAMES DUGDALE
- 1819 New British Traveller
GEORGE GRAY
- 1824 New Book of Roads
CHARLES SMITH
- 1826 New Pocket Companion to the Roads of England and Wales