Early Maps of Kent

( 247 ) EARLY KENT MAPS. (SIXTEENTH CENTURY) BY GREVILE M. LIVETT, B.A., F.S.A. (Hon. Canon of Rochester.) INTRODUCTION. "A CARDE (or Cha.rte) of this Shyre" is mentioned by William Lambarde in his Perambulation o.f J{ent. The book was first published in 1576, but a dedicatory "epistle", addressed to Thomas Wotton, Esq., in the autograph MS., which in 1924 came into the possession of the Kent Archooologica, 1 Society and is preserved in the Maidstone Museum, bears the date "this last day of January, 1570 "-i.e., according to the reformed calendar, the year 1571. The MS. shows many subsequent alterations and additions in the author's handwriting, and these are incorporated in the printed book, but as the mention of the Carde is in the original draft it must have been in existence at least as early as 1570. Recent writers have suggested reasons for identifying with it one or other of the four early maps that are described in this Paper. In the present writer's opinion the identifications are unsound. I think Lambarde's Carde is completely lost. 1. An undated autograph map of Kent, signed " Robertus Gloverus, Somersett, fecit," and inserted as a frontispiece into a MS. copy of the Perambuta,tion. This MS. also lies in the Maidstone Museum. Signed " Robertus Gloverus, Somerset, scribebat," it was written (in beautiful script) possibly as early as 1571 (in which year Glover became Somerset Herald), and certainly before Lambarde made any additions to his original draft. The map, drawn to a scale of about l½ in. to 10 map-miles, is coloured and measures 9-l by 6¼ in. The accompanying illustration (Plate I) is a collotype reproduction of a photograph kindly taken for the 248 EARLY KENT MAPS. purpose by Mr. C. E. Fisher, a member of the staff of the Maidstone Museum. 2. Christopher Saxton's map of the four south-eastern counties, engraved by Remigius Hogenberg and published in 1575. Included by Saxton in the collection of his maps of all the counties of England and Wales with a general map of Anglia in a volume in 1579. Drawn to a scale of about 2-} in. to 10 miles, it measures nearly 22 by 16 in. including a border of ¼ in. The Kent portion is reproduced herewith (Plate IT) from an uncoloured copy in the British Museum. 3. An undated, anonymous map of "The Shyre of Kent, Divided into the five Lathes therof," with the adjoining portions of the three neighbouring counties, evidently based on Saxton's map aforesaid. The earliest of several issues is in the possession of the Royal Geographical Society. Drawn to a scale of 2½in, to 10 miles,it measures 14 by 7gin., including a¼ in. border. Probable date, 1577. A reproduction appeared in Arch. Oant. Vol. XXXVIII (1926), to illustrate the Paper in which our member Mr. E. G. Box suggested that it might be the "Carde " referred to by Lambarde. By permission of the R.G.S. it is repeated here (Plate VI), for the purpose of convenient comparison with Saxton's map, by means of an electrotype made in 1924 for Dr. F. W. Cock, F.S.A., and kindly lent by him. Mr. Box has called it " the rare map ", but as two or three other copies have since come to light I shall venture to re-name it the ' anon ' map. 4. Phil Symonson's " New Description of Kent ", engraved by Charles Whitwell, dated 1596. A large map, drawn to the scale of nearly 5! in. to 10 miles; with a ½in.border it measures nearly 31 by 21 in. The late Hon. Henry Hannen published a small-scale reproduction of an early issue in his possession to illustrate a paper that he contributed to Arch. Oant., XXX (1914), when the present writer was Editor. The block is missing, but fortunately I possess a copy of the photograph from which it was made, and from it another block has been made for the purpose of EARLY KENT MAPS. 249 this paper (Plate VII). A full-size reproduction, printed in 1914 by the Ordnance Survey, may be purchased at a small price. I. As explained more fully in a footnote1 Lambarde's original purpose was to compile a much more extensive work, dealing with the whole country, of which his description of Kent should be the :first instalment. The title-pages of the successive editions of The Perambulation contain no indication of such intention. That of the :first edition (1576) announces it as Conteining the description, Hystorie, and Customes of that Shyre. Collected and written (for the most part) in the yeare 1570. By William Lambarde of Lincolnes Ione Gent. and nowe increased by the addition of some things which the Author himselfe hath observed since that time. The title-page of the second edition, published in 1596, says: " :first published in the yeare 1576 and now increased and altered after the Author's owne last copie." The following quotation, which is chosen for its mention of the "Carde", is taken from the MS., and shows in Italic 1 William Lambarde, born in 1636, began his literary work by a collection of Anglo-Saxon laws published in 1568. He then began to collect materials for a TopographicaU Dlctionarie of the antiquities of the whole realm. This ambitious design began to take shape in the MS. dated 1570, which the author intended to publish without delay, a.s indicated 􀄨y the inclusion of the dedicatory " Epistle " addressed to Thomas Wotton {sherifi of Kent in 1658 and again in 1579) "from Seintcleres, this last day of January, 1670." It begins with a map entitled Angliae Heptarchia, followed by The Descr·iption of the Engliah Heptarchie, or seven KingdomB, and other genera.I matter-" things all handled a.a an induction to the Topographica.ll Diotioru\rie." Then {as on p. 6 of the '76 edition of the Perambulation) the author turns to the Description and HisUn-ie of the Shyre of Kent, beginning with an explanation of his reason for the choice of that "Country" for the first instalment of his big work. The '76 a.nd later editions contain a letter of commendation addressed by Thomas 'Wootton to his fellow Countrymen at large, and especially to'the Gentlemen of Kent, dated 16th of April, 1576. Lamba.rde abandoned his larger project on learning that William Camden had for some years been engaged on a similar work, which eventually issued in the publication of the first edition of his Britannia in 1686 and the 6th (greatly enlarged) edition of 1607. In his own time La.mbarde was, perhaps, best known for his Eirenarcha, a, work upon the office of the Justices of the Peace, published in 1681. He became Keeper of the records at the Rolls Chapel in 1597 and died in 1601. 250 EARLY KENT MAPS. type the author's additions to his original draft. In the 1576 edition it is printed (p. 177) with a few changes in spelling and the substitution of" breaketh out "for" originateth" and of " Lineham " [Lenham] for " Hartisham " [Harrietsham]. Some of the spelling is changed in the Glover copy also, but, as I have previously remarked, that copy contains none of the additions. The fourth and last [ of the brooks that runne into the Medway] originateth out of the ground at Hartisham, washeth the Castle of Leedes, a little from whence it receaveth the small water of Holingborne, and in companie of the same passeth towa.rde Maidstone: at which place (as I thinke) the name of Medway first beginneth, the rather because it hathe there receaved all his helpes and crossing the Shyre as it weare in the midst1 from thence in one entier Chanel labourith to finde out the Sea. For otherwise the Ryver itself e is properly called Egle, or Eyle, as of which bothe Eilesford and y• ca.stle of Alingto (or rather Eylingto) doe take their names.2 li I faile in this derivation the fault for the first parte is his that made the Carde of this Shyre, and the the follie ys mine that followe him ; but the truthe notwithstandinge ys easily to be founde out by any man that wil make investigation and examine yt, and y" traspass also herein y" more veniall for that wee gooe not about to shadowe yt. By adding the short passage about the Egle and Aylesford the author unintentionally broke the continuity of what follows with what precedes it. The derivation of which 1 Medway : "the midiway division of the county" is a plausible expla.nat, ion of this river-name. Modern authorities, however, prefer a derivation that implies "a meadow-river," "the river that flows through low-lying land," (aa is the case with the Medway in long stretehes of its course), from mrecl, "meadow," and Wa3fl, "water," "wave," or wagan, to flow. The second syllable occurs as a river-name in the Wye of Derbyshire and the Wey in Hants, Dorset an􀀜 -􀀝􀀞"lf'f'tr- 1,,..,. 􀂾..t-,i,v.·1<-,,'l"''i6- -k,,,.,k,,/ 􀂿•u r/,1nt "-4. ...... s ... ";.,iri... c,.,,""'.r,,.,.:r "l'J'1ltrl'" gr. ._ .. .,, ""'' ,+.,.,,. •li.,J#,.:f,_ •z􀃀-/,em, 0/'fiU ,,__, r--􀃁IU J'a1wl,;,J,.􀃂-·.lfl.. • ' r·• . Sout/JJc,.•i.1 ('f""-' ,I,',,, "'!}t; 􀃃-(.i.,;,,,,,;, ,ltr.-'-'􀃄r , , '.rkHr IMJ;,r,,. c􀀖;-,a,m nn􀀗i•'-' . . .. "'J'􀀟'"-'"' 0,,,1d11 IUCt'Utl•n• JI/ ,r,·,.·/:y,,u· ) ru-.c1rwc,-J,􀀈. , . h,,,. Sul'"l:l (.-,,;. . , inrola· .lint _'11..21m·. ......􀃅. .. 1-•) Ito«, Oppukt •􀃆"CIJt11rut ·O·r«1:fjt,•· p<>r,cl,.,Ju -I􀃇•· EARLY KENT l\IAPS. PLi\.TE III. DETAILS OF SAXTON. EARLY KENT MAPS. 263 Something of the same kind happened to the five paragraphs which contain details of the four counties and London in the lower panel (Fig. 2). In this case, however, it appears that the erased inscription was repeated word for word in slightly different form for re-arrangement, not for correction, of the text. This re-engraving was done before the Burghley impression was taken: it seems strange, however, that in that copy one can detect no sign of the erased inscription, though indications of it remain more or less distinct in the later impressions. They can be quite plainly seen near the bottom of the panel, where the last line of the partially erased inscription appears under the last re-engraved line somewhat as follows: habet intra muros eoolesias parochiales · llO · extra vero intraq' libertates · I O · paroohiales·IIO·extra vero intraq' libertates·IO· In t-9-e original arrangement the lettering was larger, and there was more space between the lines and less between the paragraphs. For the benefit of members who do not read Latin the first paragraph may be translated thus : Kent, besides the metropolitical city of England (which in British times was called Kairkent, in Roman Dorobernia, in Saxon Canterbury), has also the city of Rochester, 17 market towns, and 398 parish churches. and the last paragraph thus : London (,vhich is the chief city of England and a county in itself) was anciently called J.IUiJ,st,owne, Trinobantum and Troya Nova, and has within its walls 110 churches, but without and within, 10 liberties. Seekford must have supplied the engraver with the particulars set out in these paragraphs. Whence did he get the name Kairkent? Dr. Haverfield tells us that the Trinovantes were a powerful British tribe dwelling N and NE of London, and that their name played a great part in mediaeval legend, where it was interpreted as Troy N ovant, 264 EARLY KENT MAPS. the 'New Troy'. Ludswwne also is mediaeval, the Town of King Lud ! As to the map, something has already been said of it and more will be added in the next section of the Paper when the anon map will be compared with it. The technical skill and beauty of Hogenberg's work could not be excelled. The cursive lettering is remarkably clear, and the capitals show a pleasing variety of form-note, for example, the initial H of the names near the S boundary. The sitesymbol of the villages is a small circle attached to a churchtower surmounted by a tall and delicately-engraved spire. Artistic feeling is evinced also in the ships and monsters which adorn the sea and in the romantic incident portrayed at the side of the lower panel ; but the need of economy has cut them off from the map as illustrated in Plate II. It remains to note that the water-mark, as seen in my own copy of the map, is a bunch of grapes near the edge of the paper, not unlike No. 61 (dated 1541) in the folding plate of a Paper in the Geog. Jour. for May, 1924, by Mr. Edward Heawood, who tells us it originated in Italy and spread northwards. For further information about Saxton the reader is referred to a paper contributed by Sir George Fordham in 1928 to the Thoresby Society's Miscellanea (Vol. XXVIII, 1928), entitled Saxton of Dunningley (in Yorkshire) : his life and work. It may be added that Saxton obtained in 1579 a grant of arms, three chaplets on a bend gules, with a crest of an arm and hand holding a pair of compasses slightly open. In 1583 he published, still under Seckford's patronage, a large general map of England and Wales, engraved apparently by Augustine Ryther, of which the British Museum possesses one of only two extant copies-twenty sheets bound in a single volume, the copper-plates measuring 17¼ by lli in. Seekford died early in 1588, but Saxton continued his work as surveyor, printer, and bookseller for many years before retiring to his native village, where he died in 1610 or 1611. To conclude with the words of Mr. Lynam : Saxton's Atlas is not merely a valuable document for the historian, the EARLY KENT MA.PS. 265 antiquary, the student of place-names and the connoisseur of engraving: it represents the most complete survey of England and Wales carried out before 1791, when the Ordnance Survey was founded. IV. We have now to consider the anonymous and undated map entitled The Shyre of Kent, Divided into the five Lathe,s therof, reproduced in Plate VI. When Mr. Box published his paper in the 1926 volume of Arch. Gant. only three copies of this "rare map," as he called it, were known, representing three successive issues printed from different states of the same copper-plate. We are concerned now only with the first issue, of which the R.G.S. owns a copy. Its watermark is a tall pot with a fleuron on the top and on the bulb a band bearing some letters which are difficult to decipher. A similar mark, common in England in the last quarter of the sixteenth century, is figured No. 109 in Mr. Heawood's aforementioned plate, and dated 1580.1 I propose here to give reasons, amounting I think to definite proof, that the anon map was based on Saxton's 1575 map, and, that being so, cannot be Lambarde's carde. We have already seen that in 1577 there arose the likelihood of a demand for separate county maps and that in July of that year Saxton was granted an exclusive right to the printing and sale of such maps. It must therefore be concluded that the anon map was engraved under his personal direction, for the purpose of meeting such demand by a small handy map of the shire, divested of all but the adjoining parts of the three neighbouring counties and improved by showing its division into lathes. The scale is slightly smaller than that of Saxton's map, but the difference is so little that a tracing of the one can be placed over the other with only slight movement for purposes of comparison. I have done this to compare the 1 Mr. Ree.wood de.tea the 2nd issue 1620-30. A reproduction of the latest of the three editions (1720-30), which was enriched by the insertion of roads, was published by Mr. Box to illustrate a further contribution to Arclt. Gant. in Vol. XXXIX (1927). 266 EARLY KENT MAPS, coast-line, the course of the rivers Medway and Stour, the palisaded parks and woods, and the groups of hill-mounds and trees. The correspondence is practically exact, even to the number and relative position of the mounds and trees in a group. The same may be said of the single trees scattered over the map, except that many of those in the lower part of the county in the 1575 map are absent from the anon map. The border, a banded cord of pointed leaves, is the same in both maps. The correspondence is seen again in the sites of the towns and villages, whether correctly or incorrectly plotted: for instance, Waltham is placed too near the Stour, and Crundale nearly due south instead of W by N of it. There can be no doubt that the anon map is a copy of Saxton's and that the engraver followed closely the style of Hogenberg's script. The cursive lettering is markedly similar. Attention has already been drawn to the variety of the form of the capital H in certain names in Saxton's map: apart from an added flourish in one of them those names have in each case the same form of initial capital in the anon map. A special feature in both maps is the omission of the a in the final syllable of names ending in ham and its appearance in decorated form above the m. The only difference between the two styles lies in the place-symbols. The anon symbol, much inferior to Hogenberg's, consists of a little dotted circle on the lower part of a squat church-tower that leans out of the perpendicular and is finished at the top by a strong horizontal line which extends beyond the sides of the tower and has rising from it a short line to represent a spire, and it has also the addition of a side chapel or aisle. But this difference is not sufficient to counteract the significance of the many features that are similar in the two maps. Two other maps in Saxton's atlas have exactly the same symbol as the anon map: the Northants-Beds-CambridgeHunts group of 1576 and the Worcester map of 1577 ; and both of them, like the anon map, lack the names of the author and the engraver. These facts suggest (l} that all three were engraved by the same artist and (2) that the date of the anon map lies soon after July 20th, 1577, when Saxton EARLY KENT MAPS. 267 obtained his exclusive rights of sale, but before engravers were instructed to put his name on the maps. To resume the comparison of our two maps, the anon and Saxton's Kent. A great majority of the place-names are spelt alike, some of them very differently from the spelling in such other early maps as Phil Symonson's 1596 map (PS.}; Norden's (N.} in Camden's Britannia, 1607 ; and Speed's (Sp.), 1610. I will cite a few examples: Pevenburye al's Pemburye-Pepenbery in PS. and N.; Oteri'den al's Othm-Ottham or Otham in the others; Fordishr--Fordwich in PS. and Sp., Fordunch in N. ; Wimlingole-Winimsgole in PS., Wimlingswold in N., Wymingswold in Sp.; W illingsborowe-W illesborow in the other three ; W oumer and Waumere Castle-Walmer in the others ; Perlesford and Averidge-Padlesworth and Acryse in the others. · This identity of spelling appears the more remarkable when it is realized that no uniformity was practised or aimed at in mediaeval literature : in one page of Lambarde's Perambulation Pennenden is spelt in four different ways. Is it likely that, as has been suggested, Saxton and the anon map engraver were each independently, and with the same unusual care, basing his map on some earlier map which has been lost, whether it were Lambarde's " Carde " or some other 1 We can see the engraver of the anon map at work in his task of copying Saxton's map: two examples will suffice. When he reached the Isle of Grain, where in Saxton's map the three words GRANE INSUL: Greane occur one above another. Having copied the first two he came to the third and found it spelt differently from the first, so he returned to the first and inserted an E above it to make them agree. A more instructive example is the illustration in the accompanying Plate V, in which Fig. 1 is a tracing from a half-inch Ordnance map, and Figs. 2 and 3 are photographs, enlarged 268 EARLY KENT MAPS. to approximately the same scale, of Saxton's and the anon map respectively. In Figs. 2 and 3 there is practically no difference in the plotting of the place-symbols. It may be noticed that Bunnyngton (Bonington), which should have been plotted between Bilsington and Aurst (Hurst), appears down in the marsh below Aurst: and that Orlanston (Orlestone), which should have been plotted about two miles WNW of Roclcinge, was put about six miles S by W of it. (But it is fair to say that Saxton's work was generally more accurate than this case suggests.) Now Hogenberg, when he had plotted his Bilsington symbol and engraved the name under it, found he had not left room for the complete symbol for Rockinge : he was therefore content to indicate its position by its little circle only, which appears just above the lower turn of the long s of his Bilsington. And having engraved the Bunnyngton symbol he left an unusual space below it so as to avoid running the name into the symbol of Bowermershe (Burmarsh). Such then was the picture the engraver of the anon map had to deal with in making his copy. Some features, such as his omission of the r in Shadderherst and of the final e of Bowermershe suggest that he was working hurriedly: he engraved his Bilsington without detecting the little circle, and seeing the symbol of Bunnyngton standing ' high and dry ' without name ( as it seemed to him at the moment) he put Roclcing in the space under it. Then he noticed his mistake, and without troubling himself to erase and correct it he engraved Bonington (sic) immediately under his Roclcing, squeezing it in so as to avo ·d interference with it and with his Orlanston previously engraved; and then he tried, not very successfully, to complete the symbol under the first syllable of Bilsington. The reader may compare these positions with those in Symonson's map reproduced in Plate IV, Fig. 3, as well as with the Ordnance map. In spite of such mistakes it is evident that the engraver of the anon map made most of his copy with some care ; but he also made intentional additions and omissions. He distinguished the two places named Boughton (Bocton in /ig.1 ftolH/ .J>axtoM Somuset.f ig.r.23.4-j'roHV S!:fl?WltSO/tS .;teltb- EARLY KENT MAPS LJIA;t;e,N A.C.XJ.IX A.C. XLIX. EARLY KEXT .!\lAPS. DETAILS OF 􀀯AXTON AND PHIL SYMONSON. PLATE IV. Fig. l. After an Ordnance Map. Fig. 2. Enlarged from Saxton. Fig. 3. Enlarged from Anon. DETAILS OF SAXTON AND ANON. T'LA'l'ls V. EARLY KENT MAPS. 269 later maps) by the addition of Aloph to the one near Wye; and the other two in Aylesford lathe by the addition of mwrwhel (for Monohelsea) to the one and mal (for Malherbe) to the other. He corrected Hitchm into Higham, and here and there he added _a name omitted by Saxton, such as East Sutton : but he failed to mark Pluckley (north of Smarden). He made a mistake in writing Nope for Hope (near Romney). Riohborough seems to have been a trouble to Saxton or his engraver as well as to the engraver of the anon map : the former spelt it Ratsboro, and the latter Rptsboro with an e added above the p. With regard to the river names, anon omits Saxton's Ravensbourn flu and inserts all the other river names in different places from Saxton's, probably t o present them more clearly to the eye. The author of a county map, whether early or late, usually omitted details of the portion of any neighbouring county that fell within the limits of bis plate, contenting himself with writing" Parte of" such and such county. The engraver of the anon map, however, gives almost full details, again following Saxton's map of the four counties. But here and there he shows a little less care : for instance, no place-name is attached to his symbols of Saxton's Croydon and Addiscombe, NW of Addingtonr-an omission which was corrected in the later issues of the map ; and below Rye the coast line is carelessly drawn and Saxton's Rye, Haven and Winchelseye are omitted. Mr. Box has drawn attention to some other differences. The most important of anon's additions is the division of the shire into lathes, shown by dotted lines. Except in the case of the Lathe of Saint Augustines he found convenient spaces in which to add the names of the lathes, and also The Wealde. He also drew a dotted line dividing the lathe of Shipway into its two bailiwicks of Shipway and Stowting, without naming them. He made a few deviations from accuracy, e.g. he drew a pronounced eastward loop to include Oharinge in the lathe of Ailisforde instead of in that of Scray; and Appledowre and Kenerdi'gton, which should also appear in Scray, he included in Shipway. On 270 EARLY KENT MAPS. the intricate history and mapping of the lathes and the Weald or "Seven Hundreds", the reader is referred to Captain H. W. Knocker's paper on "The Valley of Holmesdale " in Arch. Gant., Vol. XXXI. It may be left to the interested reader to carry further the comparison of the two maps. If, as I contend, the anon map is a copy (with certain errors and omissions, additions and improvements) of the Kent portion of Saxton's map of the four counties, as engraved by Hogenberg in 1575 (and not of any supposed earlier map of the county by Saxton or other author), then the claim that it was Lambarde's Carde of this Shyre falls to the ground-a claim based upon the simple fact that " it, and no other early map of Kent, has the name of Medway in the position indicated by Lambarde," namely five miles below Maidstone. By the way, ought not the passage to run" No other known map" 1 Mr. Box calls to his aid the name of Northmouthe given to the northern outlet of the Wantsum in both the anon map and Saxton's, and" in those two early maps only". This name is interesting quite apart from the question under review. It should be noticed that with that name in both maps there is linked another-Newhaven. Now in the Saxon period, as earlier, the waters of the Wantsum formed a wide estuary. Shipping on its way from Sandwich to London sailed along its western bank and out under the walls of Reculver fort, i.e. by a north mouth. In the course of time a gradual silting up of the estuary made that channel difficult: a sea-wall was built and the shipping diverted to a more navigable channel about a mile to the east, as shown in both our maps. To its exit there the old name of The N orthmouthe was transferred, but it also became known as N ewhaven, a name which it acquired in reference to the decaying "sure haven of Stourmouth ". Both names were in use when our two maps were made. Newhaven, however, seems to have become the name more commonly used, as it appears alone in the slightly later maps of Symonson, Norden and Speed. But the old name was not altogether lost, for it appears as late as 1717 in a map by S. Parker that hangs EARLY KENT MAPS. 271 in the vestry of :Minster church; and it is the subject of discussion, as Mr. Box reminds us, in John Battely's Antiquitates Rutupinae, written in Latin and published in 1711. Battely (p. 12) js combating a notion, entertained by both Somner and Gibson, that N orthmutha was at the mouth of the Medway (in Me.