The Society Has Been Financially Assisted By Oxford City Council
Meetings Are Held
in the
United Reform Church
(Opposite The Police Station)
Next Meeting is on January 19th
Stranger Aspects of Oxford History by Brian Lowe
ID
2
Title
The Development of Printed Maps of Oxfordshire
Date
Speaker
5/18/2004
John Leighfield
Summary
Mr John Leighfield entertained us with a detailed history of the developments of Oxfordshire maps well illustrated by a Powerpoint presentation.
He began by explaining that the earliest map was a Babylonian of c. 6 BC but that all civilisations have taken map making seriously.
The first known depiction of Britain was in the second century AD by Ptolemy while the first map produced in Britain was the "Anglo Saxon Map" produced about the end of the tenth century.
A map in the Bodleian Library which dates from 1360 is the Gough Map which is quite accurate. The invention of the printing press caused a revolution in the production of maps from the 15th Century. This process was fed by the increase in surveys of land holdings and the needs of the military. In the sixteenth century Christopher Saxton set about creating an atlas of English counties commissioned by Thomas Seckford.
The map of Oxfordshire is very detailed with symbols but no roads marked. This map became the basis for future maps of the county. The early maps were engraved on copper, printed in black and white and then coloured by hand. In 1610 William Hole produced a map using the originals of Saxton but which contained some inaccuracies. When later maps were produced it is possible to identify on which they were based, the original or the copy, because the mistakes became perpetuated.
Roads were added to the Saxton based maps in 1734.
Travelers' maps were produced looking very much like modern route maps as were many other types including playing card maps.
In 1767 Thomas Jeffrey published maps which are more in the modern style and in 1797 Richard Davies produce an Oxfordshire map with a scale of 2" to the mile. This showed fields.
The Napoleonic Wars saw the start of the Ordinance Survey maps. The Oxfordshire map was produced by the OS about 1830.
The future of maps is moving rapidly into the computer age with maps produced online to order.
