Is oldmap.co.uk a reliable place to buy a map print?
Yes. The Old Map Company has been selling reproduction maps online since 1999, supported by many more years of specialist map-printing experience.
Every order is handled individually. We begin with carefully prepared, high-resolution artwork and print each map to order using archival pigment inks and textured fine art paper. The finished print is then inspected personally. If we are not satisfied with it, it is printed again.
This attention to detail has remained central to the business throughout more than 25 years of online trading. It also allows us to offer a straightforward, no-quibble guarantee: if you are not delighted with your map, simply return it for a full refund.
“There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price only are this man’s lawful prey.”
— J. A. Richards, 1901
Our Story
The story behind The Old Map Company begins in 1926, when a research chemist named Charles Promislo accidentally spilled a beaker of chemicals across his laboratory table. Leaving the mess until morning, he discovered the following day that the liquid had soaked into a pile of papers. The sheets had aged and wrinkled, taking on an appearance remarkably similar to old parchment.
Promislo was fascinated by the result. A keen student of history, he spent several years refining what eventually became an 11-step paper-ageing process.
Some years later, he met Victor Mort, an Englishman with a similar enthusiasm for history. Mort recognised that the process could be used to create convincing reproductions of old and historic maps. Their shared idea led to the establishment of Porter Prints in York during the mid-1950s.
Victor Mort subsequently acquired an original copy of John Speed’s celebrated atlas, The Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine. First published in 1611–12, the atlas contained Speed’s magnificent maps of the counties of England and Wales, together with maps of Scotland and Ireland. Many of its individual map plates carry the date 1610.
Carefully reproduced and individually treated using Promislo’s parchment-ageing process, these historic maps took on much of the character of original documents. The combination of Speed’s intricate cartography and the specially aged paper created a distinctive range that found admirers throughout Britain.
Steve Roberts and Lauren Tillotson acquired Porter Prints in the early 1990s. Working initially from a shed in a Cornish fishing village, they developed the heritage map range from which The Old Map Company grew.
The Old Map Company in 1999 – A Film from Our Archive
This promotional film was made around 1999, when The Old Map Company was producing its distinctive parchment-effect reproductions of John Speed’s historic maps. It offers a rare glimpse of our earlier printing methods and the business from which today’s fine art map collection developed.
Much has changed since the film was made. We now reproduce our maps using high-resolution artwork, archival pigment inks and textured fine art paper, but the maps, the family involvement and our insistence on inspecting every finished print remain at the heart of the company.
From Parchment Replicas to Fine Art Printing
After many years and around a million maps, both public taste and printing technology began to change. We had greatly enjoyed supplying our parchment-effect maps to an enviable customer base throughout the UK. These included York Minster, Edinburgh Castle and the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich, as well as the many independent retailers whose support helped the business to flourish.
As the market evolved, we decided to bring the wholesale parchment-replica side of the operation to a close and concentrate on producing exceptionally detailed fine art map prints.
Developments in giclée printing brought colour reproduction, tonal range and image clarity to remarkable new levels. The process proved ideally suited to historic cartography, allowing us to preserve the fine engraving, lettering and subtle colour found in the original maps while producing prints intended to be enjoyed for generations.
The Old Map Company remains a small family operation. Every map is printed individually to order and receives our personal attention before leaving our Cornwall workshop. Although our methods have changed considerably since the days of hand-aged parchment paper, our purpose remains much the same: to preserve the beauty and fascination of historic cartography and make it available to people who share our love of maps.
More than three decades after we first took over Porter Prints, the pleasure customers find in our maps—and the generous messages we receive after they have been delivered—remain the most rewarding parts of our work.