Celebrating Canterbury’s cartographic heritage: a short introduction to the City’s maps and mapmakers, c.1550-1750

216 CELEBRATING CANTERBURY’S CARTOGRAPHIC HERITAGE: A SHORT INTRODUCTION TO THE CITY’S MAPS AND MAPMAKERS, c.1550-1750 alexander j. kent, avril leach, simon pratt and cressida williams As an important historical and ecclesiastical centre, Canterbury has a rich, yet surprisingly under-researched, cartographic heritage. The city has nurtured a long and vibrant tradition of mapmaking, whose contributions include some outstanding maps of the city as well as the establishment of a ‘school’ of estate surveying in the seventeenth century that flourished well into the nineteenth. This paper presents a selection of manuscript and printed maps of Canterbury from c.1550 to 1750 and examines their topographic detail before discussing some of the city’s prominent mapmakers and their work. Through these observations it aims to offer some new perspectives on the changing cartographic representation of the city and to stimulate a re-appraisal of Canterbury’s place in the wider history of maps and mapmaking. This paper is derived from a study day held at Canterbury Christ Church University on 26th March 2022, which comprised a series of talks on the city’s maps and mapmaking followed by a special display of local examples at Canterbury Cathedral Archives. The study day provided an opportunity for participants to share findings of their archival research on the manuscript and printed maps of the city and its environs, and to explore the city’s cartographic heritage and discuss its wider significance. Despite its historical and ecclesiastical significance, Canterbury has received surprisingly little scholarly attention as either a subject or a centre of mapmaking. The city is depicted on the Peutinger Table,1 the thirteenth-century map of Britain by Matthew Paris2 and on the Hereford mappa mundi.3 Perhaps its earliest surviving contribution to cartography is the ‘Cotton’ or ‘Tiberius’ world map, which was possibly created at Canterbury in c.1050, and is the earliest mappa mundi to have originated in England.4 On a local and more pragmatic level, medieval mapmaking is represented by the twelfth-century plan of the waterworks of Christ Church Priory that was probably ordered by Prior Wibert in around 1165 and forms part of the Canterbury (Eadwine) Psalter.5 The depiction of Canterbury gained wider renown in print through Braun & Hogenburg’s Civitates Orbis Terrarum (1588) and as an inset in Speed’s map of Kent for his first (1611) edition of Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine. The city continued to be served by some outstanding examples of manuscript mapmaking from the sixteenth century onwards, especially after the establishment of a ‘school’ of estate surveying that included CELEBRATING CANTERBURY’S CARTOGRAPHIC HERITAGE: c.1550-1750 217 the Hill family of mapmakers, who were commissioned by the cathedral’s Dean and Chapter. Building on its role as a hub for surveyors, Canterbury’s contribution to Enlightenment cartography includes Christopher Packe’s A New Philosophico- Chorographical Chart of East Kent (1743), for which observations were made from the cathedral’s Bell Harry Tower. What follows aims to draw together some observations from the study day that serve as an introduction to the city’s maps and mapmakers upon which further and more extensive research can be made. The paper examines a selection of maps that illustrate the changing cartographic portrayal of Canterbury and show how the mapmaking industry flourished in the city through the outstanding work of its estate surveyors. The selection of maps is based on their topographical and historical value in what they reveal about the characteristics, layout and morphology, size, and landmarks of the city over time. There is scope here not to explain the selected maps in detail (each of which warrants much fuller treatment), but just to provide an introduction to the mapping of Canterbury in the early modern era. The second part of this paper examines the role of the city as a hub for estate mapmaking in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. By presenting some of the key individuals and their work, it demonstrates how the production of estate maps reflected the socio-economic conditions that supported the growth of this profession within Canterbury. The overview given here is therefore intended to make some observations and stimulate further study into the business of estate surveying and Canterbury’s experience of its development in particular. The paper concludes by discussing the wider significance of Canterbury’s heritage of maps and mapmaking and the city’s contribution to the history of cartography. maps of the city CCA-Map/49 After the twelfth-century Eadwine Psalter waterworks plan of Christ Church Priory, Map/49 (Fig. 1) seems to be the earliest surviving manuscript map to depict a significant section of the city. This shows the urban development around St Paul’s extra-mural church, St Augustine’s Abbey, the King’s Park with a small herd of deer, and the rural landscape to the east of the city. It is drawn in pen and wash with a visible pencil under-drawing on two paper sheets, each bearing a ‘pot with one handle’ watermark and joined on their long edges to give a portrait layout (c.53 x 76 cm). The relatively simple watermark design tends to suggest a pre-1600 date.6 The map has no formal border and the background wash and roadways run to the paper’s edge. There is no scale, title, compass or border text to orient the viewer or show that the city wall is located just off the bottom of the map. Two parallel roads running top-to-bottom (Church Street St Paul’s and onwards, and the Old Dover Road as now known) are drawn to fit since in reality they diverge. Several buildings are labelled, as are many field areas, the latter suggesting land definition or transaction as a reason for the map’s production. It is notable that this map forms part of the cathedral’s own archive collection and seems likely it was produced in Canterbury or nearby, possibly in relation to St Paul’s Rectory tithes.7 The same area is depicted in a presumed lost map of 1672 by Thomas Boycote, of which there are later copies.8 ALEXANDER J. KENT, AVRIL LEACH, SIMON PRATT AND CRESSIDA WILLIAMS 218 Fig. 1 CCA-Map/49 (pre-1600?). (Image copyright Canterbury Cathedral Archives.) CELEBRATING CANTERBURY’S CARTOGRAPHIC HERITAGE: c.1550-1750 219 The artist is unknown but may have been a painter or illustrator in the city given the map’s stylistic representation rather than its technical accuracy. Foreground houses are shown in perspective relative to each other and artistic details include a group of five men, two birds on a rooftop, and smoke rising from chimneys. A common source for the ‘1588’ views of Canterbury (Figs 2-5) Amongst the contents of Georg Braun and Franz Hogenberg’s (B&H) Civitates Orbis Terrarum IV (Cologne) was a map-like bird’s-eye view of ‘Cantuarbury’ – the first published image of the city (Fig. 4).9 Within a manuscript book of bird’s-eye views and notes, The Particular Description of England, by William Smith, later Rouge Dragon Pursuivant, is a very similar-looking image, initialled WS and dated 10 October 1588 (Fig. 5).10 Their similarities have led to one being taken as the source of the other, but a comparison of details shows this cannot be so. As selected examples (Figs 2 and 3) demonstrate, B&H have some correct details where WS is erroneous, and vice versa. Occasionally, both are wrong (see Table 1). TABLE 1. SOME COMPARISONS OF THE TOPOGRAPHIC DETAILS IN THE WILLIAM SMITH (WS) BIRD’S EYE VIEW AND BRAUN AND HOGENBERG (B&H) VIEW Detail WS B&H Comment St Mildred’s Church x  WS omits or conflates the church with the houses behind; B&H correctly show double roof and (lost) tower. Fyndon Gate and buildings behind x  WS wrongly shows the towered gate facing Monastery Street rather than Lady Wootton’s Green, and the former abbey range(s) behind as a crescent. Cathedral E end ? x WS seems to show the cathedral terminating in the apsidal ‘Corona’; B&H do not. Infirmary ruins? x x Both wrongly show a single-arched building or tower just east or south-east of the cathedral, whereas the nearest structure would have been the multi-arched Infirmary (or ruins thereof) just to its north-east. Cathedral SW tower  x B&H show the body of the tower as only about half the height of the nave; not the case since c.1420-1459.11 Archbishop’s Great Hall and Lanfranc Tower  x B&H wrongly show the hall set well back from the street, without the service range (whether medieval or sixteenth-century replacement) along its frontage, and the tower entirely proud of the cathedral nave.12 St Mildred’s Watergate x x Both indicate the city wall crossing the river on an otherwise undocumented arcade, contrary to later mapping and archaeological evidence.13 ALEXANDER J. KENT, AVRIL LEACH, SIMON PRATT AND CRESSIDA WILLIAMS 220 Fig. 2 Details from Braun & Hogenberg (R) and Smith (L) of St Mildred’s Church (top), Fyndon Gate (middle) and Cathedral E end with Infirmary ruins (bottom) (Image copyright Canterbury Cathedral Archives). CELEBRATING CANTERBURY’S CARTOGRAPHIC HERITAGE: c.1550-1750 221 Fig. 3 Details from Braun & Hogenberg (R) and Smith (L) of Cathedral SW Tower (top), Great Hall and Lanfranc Tower (middle) and St Mildred’s Watergate (bottom) (Image copyright Canterbury Cathedral Archives). ALEXANDER J. KENT, AVRIL LEACH, SIMON PRATT AND CRESSIDA WILLIAMS 222 Fig. 4 CCA-DCc/Prindraw 3/A/1 Print of Braun & Hogenberg’s map (1588). (Image copyright Canterbury Cathedral Archives.) CELEBRATING CANTERBURY’S CARTOGRAPHIC HERITAGE: c.1550-1750 223 Such inconsistencies show that neither was a direct source for the other. Though it seems likely that WS copied someone’s view before sending it to B&H, there is no guarantee that he was responsible for the (now lost) original. Indeed, both parties’ similar bird’s-eye views of the city of Cambridge were certainly, and independently, derived from a surviving 1574 original by Richard Lyne despite B&H twisting their view through ninety degrees (resulting in the invention of a quadrangle to fill in a gap north of the overly narrow King’s College Chapel).14 Similarities are evident in, for example, the presence of cows, anglers and their catch beside the River Cam, and boats upon it. The clearest evidence that B&H did not make their Cambridge copy from that of WS, nor vice versa, can be seen by comparing the keys and places they represent. Firstly, every item in Lyne’s lettered key is duplicated by B&H’s numbered one, including the distinctive final ‘Crates ferrea…’ (iron cage or grille), despite B&H including none of the key numbers on the map. In contrast, WS has a completely different lettered key but, unlike B&H, does show a structure, unkeyed, where Lyne drew the crates ferrea, in the middle of the road junction north-west of Magdalene College. Matthew Parker, Master of Corpus Christi College 1544-1553, may have commissioned Lyne’s Cambridge map but, although Lyne described himself as Parker’s ‘servant’, there is no certain evidence for the commission.15 However, in 1559-1575, Parker was Archbishop of Canterbury and assembled at Lambeth a team of artists and craftsmen to aid in the production of genealogies and of the Bishops’ Bible.16 Lyne, a noted portraitist, was in this team, as was Remigius Hogenberg (brother of the publisher), who engraved a portrait of Parker by Lyne.17 An ornately overpainted (by Lyne?) version of the print (originally inscribed 1572, but updated to 1573) formed the endplate of a manuscript book, probably compiled by Parker, including his 1548-1549 Statutes of Corpus Christi.18 Whether Lyne or another was responsible for the view of Canterbury from which WS and B&H derived theirs, its dating is still moot. However, the inclusion of the church of the long-dissolved Franciscan Friary in a circular enclosure (actually a pair of islets forming a rough oval) near St Mildred’s might suggest an earlier rather than later date, though the absence of the Campanile Tower (pace Archaeologia Cantiana, 25, 253) suggests it cannot much, if at all, pre-date Leland’s c.1540 observation that it ‘was now a late clene pulled down’.19 ‘1588’ Views Braun & Hogenberg’s map was drawn by George Hofnagel and engraved by Remigius Hogenberg or Cornelius Hogius.20 The minimal labelling identifies only the castle, marketplace, Christ Church and ‘Iter ad Londinum (sic)’. Smith’s book, intended for publication, comprised seven bird’s-eye views and a further eight profile sketches of English towns in a quarto size executed in pen and ink on paper. In a brief textual note, he describes Canterbury as a ‘fayre and large citty, well walled, in compass round, having on the south syde the Castell, and on the north syde the goodly fayre Minster, or Cathedrall Church, called Christchurch …’.21 His map, accompanied by a compass, includes a key for twelve sites and three in-map labels which contain errors previously noted by Canon Scott Robertson.22 ALEXANDER J. KENT, AVRIL LEACH, SIMON PRATT AND CRESSIDA WILLIAMS 224 Fig. 5 Wheatley and Ashbee’s 1879 publication of Smith’s 1588 view of Canterbury. (Image copyright Canterbury Cathedral Archives.) Amongst other city features, Smith includes an exuberant drawing of what may be the mulberry tree which stood until c.1610-1625 on Mulberry Green (now Lady Wootton’s Green).23 CELEBRATING CANTERBURY’S CARTOGRAPHIC HERITAGE: c.1550-1750 225 Maps of Blackfriars The Blackfriars area of Canterbury features in three maps produced c.1590-1595. Two related documents in the city’s archive present loose sketch plans of the walled city with a focus on the area (Figs 6 and 7).24 Drafted in ink on single sheets of paper, seemingly by the same hand, there is little attempt to reflect an accurate survey. Nevertheless, border compass directions are given with west at the ‘top’ of the page, and the city’s four major roads set in polar alignment, though in reality they are offset. CCA-CC/SuppMS/11/2 was probably the second to be drawn since it provides additional detail: an adjustment to the major road positions; a depiction of Whitefriars; a stretch of wall crenelation; and a greater number of houses set along the High Street. The maps relate to a legal case concerning right of access to a lane running from Blackfriars Gate, past the Blackfriars Priory buildings, to the city’s rush market.25 The contested route is identified on both maps as ‘The way in question’. Two entries in the city chamberlains’ accounts (1591-1592) could relate to the preparation of these sketches or lost neater maps derived from them; payments are made to ‘Mr Johnson’ for ‘A platt of the whole cytie’ and ‘a lost platt of the whole cytie whereby the Fryers lane was playner layd owte’.26 Funding by the city corporation is not inconceivable given the nature and parties of the dispute. The artist could be the painter John Johnson, son of William, who obtained his freedom of the city in 1552, or painters John and William Johnson (possibly his sons), both becoming freemen in 1583.27 These were not maps for publication but are early images of the walled city of Canterbury. Contemporary with the maps of Smith and Braun & Hogenberg, they reveal something of the ability of residents to imagine their surroundings in cartographic form. These sketches contrast with a carefully executed plan of the Blackfriars area prepared by Thomas Langdon.28 Langdon’s map may have been produced for the similar purpose of supporting the long-running court case. The original is lost but a published copperplate engraved copy of 1792 (30.4 x 43.2cm) identifies Langdon’s authorship and date of preparation as 30 September 1595. CCA-Map/57 Another map perhaps prepared for a lawsuit or land transaction is CCA-Map/57 (c.1600?) (Fig. 8), which is part of the city’s archive.29 It shows the city as a corner detail, positioning it in the surrounding landscape, with the settlements of Sturry, Fordwich, and Westbere nestled into the hills, trees, and fields at the top of the map and Bridge, Bekesbourne and Littlebourne to the south. Nineteenth-century city historian J.M. Cowper and city alderman C.R. Bunce (d.1807) judged that the map showed the city liberty whilst inexplicably omitting a section.30 The map does depict certain boundary marks, for example ‘Borral mark’ and Fish Pool, through the middle of which ran the liberty boundary, but the central placement of The Mote manor house raises the possibility that its use was to identify land boundaries under Finch family ownership. Colour differentiation of land areas supports this idea and would explain why the full extent of the city liberty is not shown. ALEXANDER J. KENT, AVRIL LEACH, SIMON PRATT AND CRESSIDA WILLIAMS 226 Fig. 6 CCA-CC/L/1/30 (c.1590-1595). (Image copyright Canterbury Cathedral Archives.) CELEBRATING CANTERBURY’S CARTOGRAPHIC HERITAGE: c.1550-1750 227 Fig. 7 CCA-CC/SuppMS/11/2 (c.1590-1595). (Image copyright Canterbury Cathedral Archives.) ALEXANDER J. KENT, AVRIL LEACH, SIMON PRATT AND CRESSIDA WILLIAMS 228 The map is almost square (c.61 x 63cm) and drawn in pen and colour on parchment. It features a black border on three sides and some annotation including later additions in a different hand. The map is without a key, scale, artist’s name, or other decorative elements. Three border compass points are given, with north absent from the uneven and torn top. However, it appears that the directions have been changed, notwithstanding that a more accurate alignment would have placed the four compass points in the map’s corners. A later copy, CCA-Map/5 (c.1734), places west at the top of the sheet suggesting it was made prior to the changes in Map/57. The city is shown as a distant view. There are no wall towers but all the gates are present. Inside the walls, three major roads are visible providing the internal framework of the city. The cathedral and Christ Church Gate are illustrated, several churches and the castle, a structure at the Bulstake, Eastbridge Hospital, and what is probably the Dean’s Bridge stretching across from the city wall near Queningate. These features identify the cityscape as Canterbury without providing an accurate plan, reaffirming that the city was not the intended focus of the map. Fig. 8 CCA-Map/57 (c.1600?). (Image copyright Canterbury Cathedral Archives.) CELEBRATING CANTERBURY’S CARTOGRAPHIC HERITAGE: c.1550-1750 229 The depiction of woods, palisade fencing, walls, gates, bridges, houses, and churches show a fine level of detail, and both original map and copy show two men duelling in the corner of a field. A tracing of Map/57 in St Paul’s Church noted by Cowper (matched by the altered compass directions) includes two duels.31 Given the absence of a second duel on either Map/57 or Map/5, the most likely explanation may be a mischievous artist. John Speed’s Map (Fig. 9) John Speed’s printed collection of copperplate engravings of county maps in The Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine (folio, 1611) is familiar to many. That of Kent includes town plan insets for Canterbury and Rochester. The Canterbury map, engraved by Jodocus Hondius in Amsterdam, was prepared from Speed’s own city survey and includes his trademark ‘scale of pases’. However, two (of five) pre-publication proof copies of The Theatre evidence Speed’s initial plan to draw on an existing Canterbury map; his early draft resembling the Smith/Braun & Hogenberg maps.32 The draft’s exact derivation is uncertain and close examination of individual features reveal elements similar to both, for example, the depiction of St Mildred’s Church and St Sepulchre’s Nunnery; details which differ from both; and significant omissions – Dane John mound, the Archbishop’s Palace, the market cross – perhaps due to the space constraints of an inset map. It is possible that Speed had access to the postulated ‘missing map’ perhaps by Lyne, as above. Speed’s decision to survey Canterbury rather than rely on existing maps came late in his book’s production process and he probably visited the city in 1606 or 1608.33 As a consequence of conducting his own survey, his map was established as the most up to date of the city for much of the seventeenth century. In contrast to Braun & Hogenberg’s illustrated vision of a city set within a rural landscape, Speed offered a new and more accurate, but isolated, understanding of the city’s topography. In 1571, Georg Braun made comment in a letter to Abraham Ortelius concerning a commercial drive to include keys on maps; a point understood by Speed who furnished several of his city maps, including Canterbury, with extensive listings.34 Speed’s key, however, included a small number of errors, open to transmission by copying but largely corrected by William Somner who used a copy Fig. 9 Detail from CUL Atlas.2.61.1. Proof copy of John Speed’s map (reproduced by kind permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library). ALEXANDER J. KENT, AVRIL LEACH, SIMON PRATT AND CRESSIDA WILLIAMS 230 of Speed’s map in his Antiquities of Canterbury (1640).35 Somner – among the first generation of Canterbury residents to grow up with access to published maps of the city – used Speed’s inset in stand-alone form, thus providing a further outlet for the dissemination of Speed’s work. Speed’s map also formed the basis of ‘The Ground Plott of Canterbury’ printed in c.1670 by J. Overton that is considered likely to be drawn by Thomas Johnson (see below) and engraved by Wenceslaus Hollar.36 CCA-Map/123, the ‘city mapp’ Map/123 (c.1621-1645) is a map of Canterbury’s city liberty described in the eighteenth century by Alderman Bunce as ‘One large ancient Plan of the City of Canterbury And the Boundaries thereof on Parchment’ (Fig. 10).37 Its size is notable, being formed from seven pieces of parchment with uneven shape and Fig. 10 CCA-Map/123 (c.1621-45), city detail. (Image copyright Canterbury Cathedral Archives.) CELEBRATING CANTERBURY’S CARTOGRAPHIC HERITAGE: c.1550-1750 231 at its greatest extent measures c.3m x 1.5m. Carefully drawn, it includes a scale of one inch to ten perches (1:1,980) but no further decoration: no border, key, compass, title or signature. Some features are labelled, including street names, field names, certain significant property names, and boundary markers, but there is no numbering of field areas as often seen on smaller estate maps. Areas of land outside the external liberty boundary are uncoloured; areas within it but not under city jurisdiction are coloured either a darker green (for example, St Augustine’s and other ex-friary lands) or yellow (probably representing lands of the Archbishop of Canterbury). Most of the map depicts the empty rural landscape beyond the city walls, with a relatively small area given to the walled city: Westgate to St George’s Gate is c.33cm. That this is a map of the city liberty is perhaps most obviously seen in the depiction of Fish Pool with a dotted line through the mi ddle. The artist is unknown. Felix Hull notes similarities between Map/123 and a 1626 map of the Surrenden Estate prepared for Sir Edward Dering and drawn by William Rowley, a Weald of Kent mapmaker active c.1618-1627.38 Little is known about Rowley, but stylistic similarities, in particular the distinctive depiction of trees, suggest a common hand or someone who was trained by Rowl ey. Aside from the clear delineation of liberty boundaries, there is no evidence of the reason for the map’s production.39 City records reveal its likely purchase by the city corporation in April 1680 when they met ‘to view and consider of a Map of the City which Mr John Crane offred to sell to this City’.40 Crane is probably the son of another John Crane, of St George’s parish, who died in 1674. One, maybe both, were attorneys for the city and one – perhaps the elder – town clerk. The city purchased the map, which is described as ‘a mapp of the bounds of this Citty’, for £5 on 6 April 1680.41 canterbury as a centre of estate mapmaking In comparison with other English counties, Kent enjoys an especially rich heritage of estate mapmaking. In addition to mapping the estates of private landowners, local surveyors were employed to map the estates of corporate bodies such as the cathedrals of Canterbury and Rochester and Dover Harbour Board.42 These maps served several functions: providing an accurate record of the extent of the estate, its ownership and the rent payable;43 enabling a landowner to demonstrate his position, authority and knowledge of the value of maps and satisfy his desire to surround himself with beautiful and expensive objects; and for the cartographer to exhibit his abilities and skills.44 As a statement of ownership, estate maps were intended to outlive the term of a single lease45 and so their survival not only provides a record of ownership but also some indication of the relative amount of activity, geographical coverage and skill of local surveyors. Although few of the 100 practitioners operating in Kent during 1590-1700 indicated their place of work, Canterbury provides more evidence of continuing activity than any other centre of estate mapmaking in the county.46 The quantity of work available, whether commissioned by a corporate body or individual landowner, appears to have grown steadily during the seventeenth century and stimulated demand.47 As the county’s largest settlement with a population of around 7,000 in 1670,48 Canterbury appears to have sustained several generations ALEXANDER J. KENT, AVRIL LEACH, SIMON PRATT AND CRESSIDA WILLIAMS 232 of estate surveyors. The establishment of a ‘school’ of surveying and mapmaking in the city has been discussed by Felix Hull, who identified William Boycote (fl 1615-1648) and his son Thomas (fl 1652-1678) (Fig. 11) as the most prominent surveyors operating out of Canterbury in the early to mid-seventeenth century.49 They lived in Fordwich and were jurats of the Cinque Ports assemblies, producing maps of estates in Kent, Sussex and Surrey, with William venturing as far as Devon, Flint and Denbighshire. Felix Hull suggests that they eventually passed their surveying business to the Hill family of surveyors.50 Specifically, Hull attributes the foundation of a Canterbury school of surveyors to Francis Hill, whom he identifies as the brother of Thomas Hill, and this account has influenced subsequent writing.51 However, it merits revisiting. Evidence points to Francis Hill being the eldest child of Thomas, baptised at the cathedral in 1678, brother to Jared, also a mapmaker, who was baptised in St Paul’s Church in 1687. Francis died in 1711 and his burial entry in the St Paul’s Church register is written in his brother Jared’s hand.52 Thomas is first recorded as producing maps for the cathedral in January 1679.53 He produced a plan of the cathedral’s water supply in 1680 to assist cathedral workmen, succeeding the sketch plan of the supply made probably by James Wilkes in 1668.54 In 1681, Thomas was paid as a ‘land measurer’ for producing estate maps of the manors of Vauxhall and Walworth.55 The style of Thomas Hill’s decoration, especially his scale bars and various other ornamentation, such as birds and other animals, appears to have been derived more directly from that of the Boycotes and suggests that Thomas Hill was perhaps their apprentice. Thomas’s activities also appear to have extended beyond surveying. When he was married in nearby Petham in 1677, Thomas was described as a carpenter resident in the cathedral precincts, aged 30. Stephen Williamson has discussed Thomas’s interests in astronomy, with him sighting what was soon to be dubbed ‘Halley’s Comet’ in November 1680 through his telescope, and his connections with members of the Royal Society.56 Indeed, the rather unusual incorporation of a globe in his estate map of Newington and Cheriton (Fig. 12) suggests a broader enthusiasm for the sciences. He was clearly a man of many interests and talents, perhaps with limited formal education, as reflected in the description of him by the then Dean of Canterbury, John Tillotson, as ‘not a learned man but very industrious’.57 While Thomas may have learnt some skills from the Boycotes, he also seems to have had connections with the Canterbury artist Thomas Johnson (c.1615-1705), whose work includes external views of the cathedral and a map of Canterbury Diocese, with an inset map of the cathedral and precincts.58 Johnson shared Thomas Hill’s interest in optical devices, which he may have used to ensure precision in his drawings.59 It also seems that Thomas Hill’s son Charles was placed as an apprentice to Johnson.60 Thomas’s other son, Jared, who appears to have been active until around 1740, also undertook surveys for the Dean and Chapter of the cathedral (Fig. 13) and mapped estates beyond Kent and as far as Lincolnshire.61 In comparison with his father, Thomas, and his brother Francis, each of whom seem to have produced around 30 maps between 1680-1689 and 1698-1710 respectively, Jared appears to have been the most prolific, with almost 50 maps that survive from a period spanning 1713-1739. Surveyors usually required the help of at least one assistant CELEBRATING CANTERBURY’S CARTOGRAPHIC HERITAGE: c.1550-1750 233 Fig. 11 CCA-Map/23 Estate map of Mersham Court, Kent (1659) by Thomas Boycote. (Image copyright Canterbury Cathedral Archives.) ALEXANDER J. KENT, AVRIL LEACH, SIMON PRATT AND CRESSIDA WILLIAMS 234 Fig. 12 CKS-U1823/P5 Estate map of William Honywood’s Innings lying in Newington and Cheriton (1683), by Thomas Hill, which incorporates the depiction of a globe. (Image copyright Kent History & Library Centre.) CELEBRATING CANTERBURY’S CARTOGRAPHIC HERITAGE: c.1550-1750 235 Fig. 13 CCA-Map/3 Estate map of woods lying in the parishes of Biddenden and Benenden belonging to the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury Cathedral (1719), by Jared Hill. Note the similar ornamentation surrounding the scale dividers with those of Thomas Boycote’s map of 1659 in Fig.11. (Image copyright Canterbury Cathedral Archives.) ALEXANDER J. KENT, AVRIL LEACH, SIMON PRATT AND CRESSIDA WILLIAMS 236 (in the field and in making the map itself) and it is likely that Thomas would have trained Francis and Jared in surveying and mapmaking. The skills of both brothers must have owed much to their father, who developed his own skills in the shadow of the cathedral’s Bell Harry Tower. Certainly, there seems to have been a degree of pride in their association with the city, as all three surveyors of the Hill family included the statement ‘Surveyor in Canterbury’ on their maps. Although evidence has yet to be found for the direct continuation of the Canterbury school of surveyors from the Hill family, Hull suggests that the maps of Thomas Wrake, of Kingston, demonstrate a decorative style and use of colour similar to that of both Thomas Boycote and Thomas Hill.62 However, Wrake appears to have been a contemporary of Thomas Hill, and it is not unlikely that he could also have assisted Thomas Boycote but did not possess the advantage of passing the business down his family line. It was not uncommon for other surveyors based in the city to mention Canterbury explicitly as the place of work in their maps’ cartouches. These include Thomas Bourne (a contemporary of Thomas Hill), John Crippen, Henry Maxted and Edward Randall (contemporaries of Jared Hill). None appear to have been as prolific as the Hills, however, and the decorative style of their maps displays more individual character than those elements (such as the scale dividers and cartouche frames) that bear a distinctive visual resemblance traceable through the Hill family back to Thomas and William Boycote. conclusion This short introduction to Canterbury’s maps and mapmakers has illustrated some aspects of the cartographic heritage of the city and its contribution to the history of mapping. Although printed maps of the city from the sixteenth century onwards provide important resources for understanding its historical and topographical development, it is perhaps Canterbury’s fine tradition of manuscript mapmaking – from medieval times to the Enlightenment – that has yielded its most outstanding individual examples. These encompass a wide range of patrons and purposes, from working plans of waterworks produced for the cathedral’s Dean and Chapter to highly decorated estate maps for individual landowners that were intended to serve as both administrative records and objects of beauty. It is notable that some estate surveyors working in Canterbury during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, such as the Hill family, were keen to state their association with Canterbury on their maps. As well as serving to attract further business through the merits of their draughtsmanship, it nonetheless suggests an awareness of continuing a tradition of cartographic excellence that was worth upholding. That the city was demonstrably able to support and promote its own school of estate mapmaking is rare – if not unique – in the history of cartography in England. Each of the maps and mapmakers mentioned above and those included in the following table (see Appendix) warrants additional study, particularly because for many of these examples, such as the enigmatic Map/123, little is known about the mapmaker or the motivation behind their creation. It is therefore hoped that this paper will serve to stimulate further research into this and other maps which contribute towards Canterbury’s rich cartographic heritage. CELEBRATING CANTERBURY’S CARTOGRAPHIC HERITAGE: c.1550-1750 237 acknowledgements The authors are most grateful to Canterbury Cathedral Archives and Library staff, and especially Dr Toby Huitson, for their assistance and providing images for this article. APPENDIX Canterbury maps to 1750 Notes: At Canterbury Cathedral Archives unless otherwise stated. *Manuscript maps. Engraved prints may exist in further copies than those identified here. Two Canterbury maps noted by Felix Hull are absent since unidentified: 1653 by Simon Barrow and 1686 by C. Passmore. Date Reference Map details Mapmaker, if known Mid-1160s Trin. Coll. Cambs. MS R.17.1, ff. 284v-285r * Plan of waterworks at Christ Church Priory in Canterbury (Eadwine) Psalter [Prob. prepared on orders of Prior Wibert] Pre-1600? Map/49* St Paul’s and St Augustine’s Abbey area Pre-1588 [Missing original] [‘Missing Map’?] Richard Lyne? 1588 BL Sloane MS 2596, fol. 15* In The Particular Description of England William Smith 1588 In B&H Civitates orbis terrarum Engraved print in Vol. IV See article text c.1590-5 CC-L/1/30 & SuppMS/11/2* Blackfriars Case Maps 1595 [Missing original] Map of Blackfriars Copy: BL K.Top.16.38.aa, engraved print, 1792 Thomas Langdon n.d. [c. 1600] BL Maps c.25.a.10, fol. 69 Engraved print in Teatro della più illustri et famose città del mondo (pr. Venice) Deriv. B&H/WS c.1600? Map/57* View from Littlebourne area towards Canterbury, Fordwich and other villages Copy: Map/5, 1734 c.1606-8? Yale, Atlas 40 & BLMaps C.7.c.5 Engraved proofs for John Speed’s The Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine Deriv. B&H/WS/[Lyne?] c.1610? BL Maps CC.5.c.37 CUL Atlas 2.61.1 RGS CA16F-003 Engraved proofs for The Theatre: CUL map is the Gardener copy John Speed 1611 BL Maps C.7.e.6 Published prints in copy of The Theatre John Speed ALEXANDER J. KENT, AVRIL LEACH, SIMON PRATT AND CRESSIDA WILLIAMS 238 Date Reference Map details Mapmaker, if known 1635 Map/227* Mote Map Copy: Bodl. MS C17:36(51), 1832 by J. Lancefield William Boycote 1635 LPL TD/38* St Gregory’s Priory lands William Boycote 1640 In Somner, Antiquities, 1st edn Engraved print of Canterbury Deriv. Speed c.1621-45 Map/123* The ‘city mapp’ of Canterbury Liberty Copies: Map/150, c.1826 by Henry Cooper? and Map/151, c.1750-1800, less detailed copy c.1653 [Auction catalogue] Engraved print in Theatrum Praecipuarum Urbium Jan Jansson Deriv. B&H c.1650 BL Add. MS. 11564* Plan de Cantorbery Copied from Speed/ Somner 1661 BL 796.a.5, facing p. 300 Engraved print in R. Hermannidae, Britannia Magna (Amsterdam) ‘Cantuaria / Canterbury’ Deriv. Speed 1668 DCc/Fabric/35* Plan of Christ Church precinct water pipes Attr. James Wilkes c.1671-6 BM Q,6.102 ‘Ground Plott of Canterbury’ Engraved print on broadsheet with two cathedral views Poss. drawn by Thomas Johnson and engraved by Wenceslaus Hollar 1672 [Missing original] * Map of Barton Farm and other lands in St Paul’s parish Copies: U160/1/1, 1754 by John Hart; U63/8752 copy of Hart’s map by John Cooper; U160/1/2 later copy of Hart’s map Thomas Boycote 1680 Map/145* Water pipes, cathedral and nearby properties Thomas Hill 1683 Bodl. Tanner MS 123, fols 22-24* Drawing of buildings at the west end of Canterbury Cathedral, with partial ground plan 1687 Map/61* Nunnery Farm, Canterbury Thomas Bourne 1690? BL Maps c.27.e.3(2) Engraved print in bound set of town maps, ‘Canterbury / Cantuaria’ [Attr. Johnann Christoph Beer, Nurnburg]63 Deriv. Speed CELEBRATING CANTERBURY’S CARTOGRAPHIC HERITAGE: c.1550-1750 239 Date Reference Map details Mapmaker, if known 1703 In Somner, Antiquities, 2nd edn Engraved print of Canterbury Waterworks plan Deriv. Speed Thomas Hill (draughtsman) c.1703-5 WSRO PHA/3847 ‘Map of the Diocess of Canterbury’ Thomas Johnson (draughtsman, age 90, 1695); engraved by F. Lamb 1705 CC-Q/GB/W/2* Land in St Mary Bredin and Patrixbourne Francis Hill 1706 Map/66* Munken Dane Francis Hill 1706 Map/194* Part of Beverley Farm Francis Hill 1706 CC-W/40* Part of Beverley Farm Francis Hill [1706?] Bodl. G.A. Oxon. 4o. 10 ‘Canterbury, Latinus Cantuaria’ V. Coronelli? Deriv. Speed 1715 CC-W/38* Palace Estate belonging to the Hales family Jared Hill 1720 LPL TD/39* Westgate Court farm, manor of Westgate lands William Brasier 1722 BL Maps C.26.e.7 ‘Durovernum. 5 Oct. 1722’ Engraved print in Itinerarium curiosum William Stukeley (draughtsman); engraved by J. Harris 1724 Map/62* Land astride the city wall Henry Maxted 1727 U160/1/3* Little St Lawrence Farm Copy: U160/1/4, 19th century HM [Henry Maxted?] 1730 Map/70* City land, north bank of the Stour and off Broad Street Jared Hill [c.1732] [Missing original]* Land and tenement on Hawks Lane, Canterbury Copy: CC-Q/GB/W/2/5 by Valentine Picard 1772 H. Maxted E. Randall 1732 CC-Q/GB/W/2/12* Land by Hawks Lane, Canterbury H. Maxted E. Randall 1733 BL K.Top.16.17 ‘Canterbury’ inset to Kent map Engraved print P. Lea Deriv. Speed 1743 BL Maps S.T.K.277 ‘A Philosophico- Chorographical Chart of East Kent’ Christopher Packe, engr. J. Mynde c.1749 U160/1/5* Map of St Lawrence Tithery Copy: U160/1/6, 19th century ALEXANDER J. KENT, AVRIL LEACH, SIMON PRATT AND CRESSIDA WILLIAMS 240 endnotes 1 The Peutinger Table is a thirteenth-century medieval copy of a Roman original that probably dates from the late third century. See R.A. Talbert, 2010, Rome’s World: The Peutinger Map Reconsidered, CUP. 2 BL Cotton MS Claudius D VI. 3 See https://www.themappamundi.co.uk/. 4 BL Cotton MS Tiberius B V/1, fol. 56v. See H. Appleton, 2018, ‘The northern world of the Anglo-Saxon mappa mundi’, Anglo-Saxon England, 47, pp. 275-305. 5 Trinity College, Cambridge, MS R. 17.1. ff. 284v-285r. See https://trinitycollegelibrarycambridge. wordpress.com/2022/05/04/prior-wiberts-waterworks-plan/. 6 When considered alongside other pot-with-one-handle watermarks in the Thomas L. Gravell Watermark Archive. 7 M. Sparks, 2016, ‘Wyke (or Moat/Mote) near Canterbury and the Finch family’, Archaeologia Cantiana, 137, pp. 237-250 (p. 237). 8 CCA-U160/1/1 is a 1754 copy by John Hart of Boycote’s map; Hart’s map was further copied by John Cooper (CCA-U63/8752). 9 Published no later than April 1588 (J. Keuning, 1963, ‘The “Civitates” of Braun and Hogenberg’, Imago Mundi l.17, pp. 41-44). 10 Differently hand-coloured versions of B&H are widely available online, e.g. https://www. canterbury-cathedral.org/heritage/archives/picture-this/the-canterbury-map/. A facsimile of The Particular Description of England (BL MS Sloane 2596) was published in 1879, with notes by H.B. Wheatley and E.W. Ashbee: on-line image of Canterbury view at https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/ plan-of-canterbury. Accompanying illustrations based upon scans kindly supplied by Canterbury Cathedral Archives and Library of their copy of B&H and of the WS facsimile. 11 K. Blockley, M. Sparks, and T. Tatton-Brown, 1997, Canterbury Cathedral Nave: archaeology, history and architecture, The Archaeology of Canterbury (New Series) 1, Canterbury Archaeological Trust, p. 143. 12 M. Sparks, Canterbury Cathedral Precincts: a historical survey (2007, Dean and Chapter of Canterbury), facing p. 3. 13 S. Pratt, 2009, ‘Two “new” town gates, Roman buildings and an Anglo-Saxon sanctuary at St Mildred’s Tannery, Canterbury’, Archaeologia Cantiana, 129, pp. 225-238. 14 A. Gray and J.W. Clark, 1921, Old Plans of Cambridge, 1574–1798, by Richard Lyne, George Braun, John Hamond, Thomas Fuller, David Loggan and William Custance, (Bowes and Bowes, facsimile (text only) published 2018 by Franklin Classics Trade Press). Copies of B&H, WS and others in T. Baggs, and P. Bryan (eds), 2012, Cambridge 1574–1904: a portfolio of twelve maps…, 2nd edn, (Cambridgeshire Records Society). Lyne’s view at https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/PRSSS- 00012-00001-00007/1https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/PR-SSS-00012-00001-00007/1, WS at https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/plan-of-cambridge, B&H at https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/PRATLAS- 00004-00057-00003/1. 15 Gray and Clark, pp. 1-3. 16 J.P. Lewis, 2016, The Day after Tomorrow: the making of the Bishops’ Bible (Oregon, Wipf and Stock), p. 91. 17 S. Lee (ed.), 1891, Dictionary of National Biography, 27, London, p. 98 (https://en.wikisource. org/wiki/Page:Dictionary_of_National_Biography_volume_27.djvu/104); id 1893, Dictionary of National Biography, 34, London, p. 342. (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Dictionary_of_National_ Biography,_1885-1900/Lyne,_Richard). 18 What may be the original painting is at Lambeth Palace (https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/ matthew-parker-15041575-archbihsop-of-canterbury-87121). A print of the 1573 engraving is held by Amsterdam Rijksmuseum (https://rkd.nl/en/explore/images/300640). The Statutes are held by Corpus Christi (https://parker.stanford.edu/parker/catalog/jk989vx5738). 19 Leland’s Itinerary 6 f.3, cited in R. Willis, 1868, ‘The architectural history of the conventual buildings of the Monastery of Christ Church in Canterbury’, Archaeologia Cantiana, 7, pp. 1-206, p. 153, f.n. 2. CELEBRATING CANTERBURY’S CARTOGRAPHIC HERITAGE: c.1550-1750 241 20 For earlier comments on this map see: Harold Sands, 1902, ‘An Old Map of Canterbury’, Archaeologia Cantiana, 25, pp. 250-254 and Walter Cozens, 1906, Old Canterbury (Cross & Jackman), pp. 92-100. 21 Wheatley and Ashbee, p. 7. 22 Canon Scott Robertson, 1883, ‘Roman Canterbury (Durovernum)’, Archaeologia Cantiana, 15, pp. 338-350 (pp. 346-347). 23 References to the tree disappear from the records around this time. 24 CCA-CC/L/1/30, CCA-CC/SuppMS/11/2. 25 Further documents are to be found in CCA-CC/L/1. 26 CCA-CC/F/A/19, fols 204r, 205v. 27 J.M.W. Cowper, 1903, The Roll of the Freemen of the City of Canterbury from AD 1392 to 1800 (Cross & Jackman), p. 49. 28 BL Maps K. Top.16.38.aa. For a facsimile drawing see Rev. C.F.R. Palmer, 1880, ‘The Friar-Preachers or Black Friars of Canterbury’, Archaeologia Cantiana, 13, pp. 81-96. For further information on Langdon see P. Eden, 1983, ‘Three Elizabethan Estate Surveyors’ in English Map Making 1500–1650 ed. by Sarah Tyacke (British Library). 29 Sparks, ‘Wyke (or Moat/Mote)’, p. 238. 30 J.M. Cowper, 1893, The Register Book of Christenings, Marriages Burialls in the Parishe of St. Paule, without the Walles of the Citie of Canterburie, 1562-1800 (Cross & Jackman), pp. vii-viii. CCA-CC/Z/5 Appendix pp. 10-11. 31 Cowper dated the map as pre-1696 since he considered neither duel was that between Rooke and Buckeridge of that date (Cowper, St Paul’s, p. viii), Hasted notes a memorial to Rooke in St Paul’s Church (Vol. 11, 2nd edn, p. 274, f.n. f). The tracing with two duels was reproduced in C.E. Woodruff, 1895, A History of the Town and Port of Fordwich (Canterbury). 32 R.A. Skelton, 1951, ‘Tudor Town Plans in John Speed’s Theatre’, Archaeological Journal, 108(1), pp. 109-120 (following p. 112) provides side-by-side images of the early BL draft and final map. 33 David I. Bower, 2014, ‘Speed’s Town-Mapping Itineraries’, Imago Mundi, 66:1, pp. 95-104 (p. 100). See also Sarah Bendall and John Speed, 2002, ‘Draft Town Maps for John Speed’s “Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine”’, Imago Mundi, 54, pp. 30-45. 34 Civitates Orbis Terrarum, ed. by Stephan Füssel (Taschen repr. 2011), pp. 19-20. The quoted letter is BL Harley MS 7011, fol. 167. 35 See BL Add.MS 11564, a French plan of c.1650 which repeats Speed’s error in mislabelling of the Grey and White Friaries. For a copy of Somner’s map, see Avril Leach, 2022, ‘ “For the honour of that ancient Metropolis”: William Somner’s The Antiquities of Canterbury (1640)’, Archaeologia Cantiana, 143, pp. 190-214 (pp. 200-201). 36 W. Bergess, 1992, Kent Maps and Plans, Library Association, 94; Simon Pratt, 1995, rev. 1997, Maps of Canterbury c.1165 to c.1850 (unpubl. Canterbury Archaeological Trust document), Map 7. The map appears on a single printed sheet with ‘The North Prospect of Christ Church the Cathedral of Canterbury’ and ‘The South Prospect of the Cathedral and Metropoliton Christ Church of Canterbury’. Prof. Rachel Koopmans pers. comm. 37 CCA-CC/Z/5, Appendix, p. 11. CCA-Map/136 is a photographic print of the city section. 38 KHLC-U275/P1. F. Hull, 1991, ‘Kentish Map-makers of the Seventeenth Century’, Archaeologia Cantiana, 109, pp. 63-84 (pp. 80-81). 39 James Hobbs dated the map as c.1621-1645, in Excavations on the Roman and Medieval Defences of Canterbury by S.S. Frere, S. Stow, and P. Bennett, 1982 (Kent Archaeological Society), p. 96, f.n. 131. Since the map shows the water conduit given to the city by Archbishop Abbot c.1621, Felix Hull’s date of c.1600 is inaccurate (‘Kentish Map-Makers’, p. 69). 40 CCA-F/A/28, fol. 433v. 41 CCA-F/A/28, fol. 433v; CCA-CC/A/C/6, fol. 124r. 42 Hull, ‘Kentish Map-Makers’, p. 65. 43 A.J. Kent, 2014, ‘Thomas Hill’s Map of Lyminge, 1685’, Lyminge – A History, 23, pp. 1-15. 44 S. Bendall, 1997, Dictionary of Land Surveyors and Local Map-Makers of Great Britain and Ireland 1530–1850, 2nd edn, London, The British Library. ALEXANDER J. KENT, AVRIL LEACH, SIMON PRATT AND CRESSIDA WILLIAMS 242 45 P.D.A. Harvey, 1996, ‘English Estate Maps: Their Early History and Their Use as Historical Evidence’, in D. Buisseret (ed.), Rural Images: Estate Maps in the Old and New Worlds, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, pp. 27-61. 46 Hull, ‘Kentish Map-Makers’, p. 69. 47 A.J. Kent, p. 3. 48 C.W. Chalklin, 1965, Seventeenth-Century Kent: A Social and Economic History (London, Longmans Green & Co). 49 Hull, ‘Kentish Map-Makers’, p. 70. 50 Hull, ‘Kentish Map-Makers’, pp. 69-72. 51 For instance, S. Bendall, Dictionary, 1997. 52 Hull states that the register was written up by Thomas (Hull, ‘Kentish Map-Makers’, p. 71). This is incorrect. Thomas seems to have died in 1689; the registers are written in Jared’s distinctive hand between 1711 and 1750. 53 Payments made for producing two maps of property in London in January 1679, CCA-DCc/ TB/15. 54 Hill’s plan is CCA-Map/145; the 1668 drawing is CCA-DCc/Fabric/35. 55 The Vauxhall map is CCA-Map/18 with British Library Add Ms 34790 being a duplicate; the Walworth map is CCA-Map/19. 56 S. Williamson, 2022, ‘New light on Stephen Gray, FRS (1666-1673), Canterbury Freeman Dyer’, Archaeologia Cantiana, 143, pp. 292-304. 57 Williamson, ‘New light on Stephen Gray’, p. 297. 58 Engravings of Johnson’s drawings were reproduced in William Dugdale’s Monasticon Anglicanum 1 (1655); his oil painting of the south side of the cathedral is in the collections of Lambeth Palace. The only known copy of the map of the diocese, printed c.1703-1705, is in West Sussex Record Office, PHA/3847. 59 This is evidenced by the inventory of his goods made after his death. We are extremely grateful to Prof. Rachel Koopmans for sharing her unpublished research on Thomas Johnson. It is tempting to think that either Thomas Hill or Thomas Johnson produced the 1683 drawing of buildings at the west end of Canterbury Cathedral (Bodl. Tanner MS 123, fols 22-24). 60 Thomas Hill had a son called Charles who was baptised in 1683; a Charles Hill was admitted a Freeman of the City of Canterbury in 1702, through apprenticeship to Thomas Johnson, described as a ‘painter-stainer’ (CCA Freemen’s indexes). 61 A map by Jared Hill showing the estate of Garvase Scrope in Welton, Lincolnshire (1721) is held by the archives of North Yorkshire County Council, ZPT26-17A4C. 62 Hull, ‘Kentish Map-Makers’, p. 72. 63 Catalogue of British Town Maps, https://townmaps.history.ac.uk