Dorset Maps & Mapmakers

Brief details of maps cited in this research together with their makers :

Thomas Aldwell - Map of Cranborne Chase c 1618 (redrawn - DCRO)

Willem Blaeuw (1571-1638)

"The Light of Navigation" published in 1612 gave the conventional signs and symbols on maps which have remained largely unchanged until modern times.

John Ogilby (1600 - 1676)

Britannia Vol I - 1675 (Road Atlas)

He produced a completely new concept in maps showing roads in strip form (from departure to destination) in a continuous ribbon format. Points of reference along the route were shown together with mileage and landmarks.

Windmills thus featured frequently and the hundred strip maps in his Britannia show many mills. This folio volume was intended as the first of three but unfortunately Ogilby died just after the first publication in 1675.

He had built up a successful publishing business in London but lost much of this in the Great Fire of 1666. However, along with his wife's grandson William Morgan, he was then commissioned as a surveyor to prepare a map of London.

Although in his seventies, this led to his very ambitious task of mapping the roads of England and Wales. The actual surveying was carried out by a number of assistants with Ogilby checking and compiling the work. He standardised the use of the statute mile (1760 yards).

He had largely financed the work himself but was appointed in 1674 by Charles II as "His Majesty's cosmographer and Geographick Printer"

The frontispiece to Britannia (opposite) was engraved by Wencelaus Hollar and shows his surveyors at work - note the windmill on the far hill !!

The writer (RC) was very lucky in buying a reduced fascsimile copy of the complete volume (produced by printing company Duckham & Co in 1939) for £9 in 1996 !!

Capt Greenville Collins (1669 - 1696) - The Coasting Pilot

An officer in the Royal Navy Capt Greenville Collins had taken part in expeditions to the coasts of South America prior to being appointed "Hydrographer to the King" in the 1679.

Earlier in 1667, the Dutch sailed up the Thames and destroyed part of the British Navy in the Medway and bombarded Chatham. This brought home the fact that the Dutch had a monopoly on map making and even the latest British maps drawn by John Seller in 1671 (1st vol English Pilot) were based on Dutch plates.

However, it was not until 1681 that Samuel Pepys as secretary of the Navy instructed Capt Greenville Collins to carry out a survey of the British coast and harbours. After a seven year survey undertaken from the Merlin, he issued the "Great Britains Coasting Pilot consisting of 48 charts. These were made from plates engraved y some of London's leading engravers. Edmund Halley was preparing his thematic cahrts of the oceans at the same time although these were not published until 1700-2. Greenville Collin's charts were re-issued over twenty times during the 18th century.

The chart of Portland and Weymouth of 1693 above was also published in French as "Cartes des Rades de Portland et de Weymouth"

Isaac Taylor (1730-1807)

The first map maker to produce a large scale map of Dorset. It measures 1550mm x 1130mm (6ft x 4ft) and was published in 1765 as a result of an advert by the Royal Society in 1759.

This society had offered £100 to any person making an accurate survey upon a scale of one inch to one mile of a county. Taylor was one of the first surveyors to take up this challenge and dedicated his map to the Earl of Shaftesbury and 23 local members of the Dorset gentry.

Although much criticised at the time for inaccuracies, it is a very detailed and interesting map. He had used shading very cleverly to show hills and their approximate gradients. His cartouche below contained "characters" or a key to the symbols used on his maps. These maps have proved invaluable as a another source of historic windmill locations.

The Dorset History Centre (DCRO) in Dorchester, Dorset has an original copy.

Tithe maps (c1840)

The county of Dorset had 283 Tithe districts. After the Tithe Commutation Act was passed in 1836, detailed maps of each parish were commissioned. Three copies were made, one for the Tithe redemption Commission (now held at NA); one for the Bishop of the area; one to the parish authorities. The Act enabled tithes to be commuted to a rent charge and the Commissioners drew up Apportionments based on the maps to arrive at fair land values with the occupants of the land / property. They were extinguished completely in 1936. They give a snapshot (c1840) of each property and its owner / occupier together with area, type of land and charge assessed.

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