Mapping and displaying the Romney Marsh landscape in the mid-18th century

Many highly decorative large-scale manuscript maps were drawn in England in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. With the help of a generous grant from the Romney Marsh Research Trust, I have evaluated the importance of such maps as items for display, both to those who commissioned the plans and to the surveyors who made them. I looked at a set of maps that was made of Romney Marsh proper (north and east of the Rhee Wall) between 1759 and 1766 for administration of the drainage of the marsh by the Lords, Bailiff and Jurats of the Marsh. I investigated the reasons why the maps were made by examining the minutes and account books of the Lords, Bailiff and Jurats, and by seeing how the use to which the maps were to be put determined what was shown on them. The style and decoration of these plans was compared with earlier maps drawn for the drainage body (a corporate owner) from 1652 to 1654, in 1705 and in 1721; with estate maps of the marsh drawn for private landlords; and with other maps drawn by the surveyor Thomas Hogben. Almost all of the documents were located in the Centre for Kentish Studies at Maidstone.

Those who commissioned maps of Romney Marsh displayed their concerns through the maps. The watering maps, drawn for the Lords, Bailiff and Jurats of Romney Marsh, show the way the drainage was administered. They show the division of the area into tax districts or waterings, the name of the person who was liable for the tax - or scot - of each piece of land, and the features that the Lords, Bailiff and Jurats were responsible for. Drainage channels, bridges and sluices which the corporation did not have to maintain were not necessarily shown, for they were unimportant and indeed did not exist so far as the drainage administrators were concerned. Other features, such as thorn bushes (grown to 'arm' the earthen sea walls), vanished from the plans once the responsibilities of the drainage body had changed. This suggests either that the Lords made sure the surveyors knew of these alterations and made their maps accordingly, or that the surveyors introduced changes on their own initiative, to impress the Lords with the currency of their knowledge.

The Lords, Bailiff and Jurats also used maps to demonstrate publicly their role as administrators of the drainage of the region. The maps drawn in the 1650s were framed and hung in the parlour at the Level' s headquarters in Dymchurch, and today we can still see on the maps the holes through which each of the three series of plans were pinned to frames. Most of the maps were drawn in a way that made them suitable for display and the least decorative of the 1650s series were those that were replaced, with lavish decoration, in the early eighteenth century.

These watering maps can be compared with estate maps of the area drawn for private owners. Again, the topographical detail shown reflected the desires of the map's commissioner and demonstrated the owner's interest in establishing his areas of responsibility by concentrating, usually exclusively, on the owner's land and including an indication of who was responsible for maintaining the boundaries of an estate. The maps were decorated, and often contained careful drawings of the landowner's seat and the family's coat of arms. Such plans might well have been framed, hung on rollers or bound into volumes to be available in public and private parts of the landowner's home, and thus would have demonstrated his social standing amongst his peers, his authority over his subordinates and his awareness of the power of maps in establishing his place in society.

Studying the work of Thomas Hogben has shown how map-makers used plans to show off their skills and abilities. Surveyors appear to have had much latitude in deciding about the appearance of their final product, and· it is possible that their expectations of how the plan would be used and how public it was to be affected the end result. The ways in which Hogben changed his style seem to be more closely related to the date of the map than to the type of landowner who commissioned it. He appears to have taken advantage of opportunities to demonstrate that he had a range of decorative devices, that he was aware of current fashions, was able to produce an accurate plan and had the skill to make a beautiful object. His charge for making the more simply decorated watering maps was the same as that for the most heavily ornamented. He was using maps for his own purposes; there is no evidence that the Lords, Bailiff and Jurats of Romney Marsh dictated to him what style or map should be made for a particular fee.

Hogben was successful. His employment by the corporation of Romney Marsh must have been the result of a good reputation, and he also received many commissions from individual members of the drainage body and their associates. The personal experience of his employers of his map making skills would have confirmed that recommendations of the surveyor were justified and led to further business for him. The landscape of Romney Marsh makes it suitable for a study of how maps of a distinctive geographical region can be examined to see how they depict an area and why they do so in a particular way. This marshland area was mapped both for private owners and for the drainage body, and the history of the latter is documented. The maps could be compared, and as many were drawn by one surveyor, his style and variations could be studied. It is clear that maps were a powerful medium for the Lords of Romney Marsh and for Thomas Hogben to display their perceptions of the landscape.

This particular piece of research continues the detailed study of maps of the Romney Marsh area, which commenced with an examination of Tudor mapping of the area. I hope to look at other maps of the Marsh at a future date, and should be most interested to hear of any maps, in public or private hands, what may have escaped my notice.

Sarah Bendall Fellow, Librarian and Archivist
Merton College, Oxford

Dr Bendall presented a paper arising directly from this research at a meeting held under the auspices of the European Science Foundation in Berlin in December 1996. She also gave a talk about these maps in November to the Rye Museum Association.