Seventeenth Century Road Map by John Ogilby

A fascinating hand coloured road map or strip map by John Ogilby, showing the route from Warrington to Derby, taken from the 1698 edition of Ogilby’s ‘Britannia’ map. The Briannia held one hundred routes, and this is plate number ninety. John Ogilby had a fascinating life and it is well worth reading up about him. Amazingly, he didn’t start the incredible task of producing a road map of Britain until he was in his seventies. The first edition of the Britannia was published in 1675, and John sadly died the following year. The second edition was published in 1698. The maps were very popular with travellers, as it enabled them to see distances between towns clearly and therefore better plan how long their routes would take. To read the map, start in the bottom left hand corner and move up the strip, then back to the bottom of the next one, and so on until you finish in the top right corner. It shows a route through Cheshire, briefly into Lancashire, back into Cheshire, and then into Derbyshire. There are a lot of familiar names though differing slightly with age. Being from Derbyshire, that section is of most interest to me. I especially like how on the stretch between ‘Shawcross the hall’ and Buxton, the only landmarks are two craggy area marked ‘a rock’. A fascinating slice of history that you can easily spend a long time studying.