"Stafford Shire", Morden, Robert

This county map of Staffordshire shows the early road system, with the town of Stafford located at the center of the sheet. The map displays interesting detail including the locations of buildings, rivers, bridges and parks. There is a decorative title cartouche and three distance scales. Engraved by Sutton Nicholls and sold by Abel Swale, Awnsham & John Churchil.

Morden was one of the first English cartographers to show longitudes measured from the meridian of St. Paul's Cathedral (shown in degrees at the bottom of the map) and time in minutes measure locally from the sun (shown at the top in Roman numerals). The roads on his maps are based on Ogilby's earlier survey. The Britannia was first published by historian William Camden (1551-1623) in 1586. After the publication of the final edition of Britannia in 1637, the work was not published again until 1695 when Gibson revised and translated the text from the original Latin and included fifty maps, mostly of the English counties, prepared by Robert Morden, replacing the outdated maps of Christopher Saxton. This map is from the subsequent edition of 1722.

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Condition: B+

There is some faint offsetting, a hint of toning along the fold, and a printer's crease above the centerfold. Watermarked paper.