Vintage Map of Gloucestershire by Joan Blaeu, 1645

Gloucestershire in Joan Blaeu’s Atlas

Joan Blaeu first published this map of Gloucestershire in Amsterdam during the mid-1640s as part of the English county volume of his Atlas Novus. Its engraved title reads Glocestria Ducatus; Vulgo Glocester Shire.

The map was produced as a copperplate engraving and subsequently appeared in several language editions of Blaeu’s atlas. Surviving examples are generally around 41 by 50 centimetres within the engraved area, although sheet dimensions and the text printed on the reverse vary between editions.

The live product page presently attributes the engraving to William Blaeu. This is incorrect: William died in 1638, several years before the map’s first publication. Joan Blaeu, who continued the family’s Amsterdam publishing business, was responsible for this edition.

The River Severn and Gloucestershire’s Contrasting Landscapes

The River Severn dominates the western half of the map, flowing past Gloucester before widening towards the estuary. Its tributaries help connect settlements across the county and provide a recognisable framework for exploring the engraving.

To the east are the higher Cotswold areas, represented using the pictorial hill symbols typical of seventeenth-century maps. Gloucester, Cirencester, Tewkesbury, Cheltenham, Chipping Campden and numerous smaller settlements are identified through engraved names and conventional town or church symbols.

The Forest of Dean occupies the land west of the Severn. It had been established as a royal hunting forest by the medieval period and possessed a long history of woodland management and ironworking. Blaeu’s map identifies its settlements, waterways and wooded landscape, but it should not be treated as a detailed survey of mines, furnaces or individual forest boundaries.

Hundreds and Historic Boundaries

Gloucestershire is divided into its traditional hundreds, with their names placed within the relevant areas. These longstanding administrative districts were used for purposes including local justice, taxation and organisation.

Among the names visible are Berkeley, Bisley, Bradley, Brightwells Barrow, Deerhurst, Kiftsgate, Longtree, Rapsgate, St Briavels, Slaughter and Tewkesbury. Colours and boundary lines make the divisions relatively easy to distinguish.

The map provides valuable evidence of how the county was organised and understood, but its boundaries should not be interpreted with the precision expected of a modern cadastral or Ordnance Survey map.

The Cotswolds and the Wool Trade

By the seventeenth century, generations of wool production and clothmaking had shaped the towns and countryside of the Cotswolds. Wealth created by the medieval wool trade contributed to the churches, manor houses and market towns for which the region remains known.

During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, cloth production also became important in valleys around Stroud, Dursley, Chalford and Painswick.

This history offers useful context for settlements appearing on Blaeu’s map. However, the engraving itself does not plot individual sheep farms, cloth mills, markets or trading routes. Its pastoral decoration should not be treated as a statistical or economic record.

Heraldry and Pastoral Decoration

At the upper left is a decorative arrangement of twelve shields: ten display family coats of arms and two have deliberately been left blank. Small cherub-like figures support the heraldic display.

The Royal Arms occupy the upper centre, with another crowned heraldic shield at the upper right. At the lower right, Blaeu placed the map’s title within an ornamental cartouche accompanied by pastoral figures and livestock.

These figures complement Gloucestershire’s rural character and the map’s decorative composition. It is reasonable to describe the scene as pastoral, but the individual figures should not be assigned invented identities or claimed to represent particular trades.

Gloucestershire During the Civil War

The map appeared during the First English Civil War, only around two years after the important siege of Gloucester in 1643. Gloucester remained in Parliamentarian hands after resisting the Royalist army of Charles I, frustrating the King’s attempt to secure the Severn Valley.

That event forms relevant historical context for a map published in the mid-1640s, but Blaeu’s engraving does not depict the siege, armies or contemporary fortifications. Its geography was derived from established English county mapping rather than gathered as a new military survey.

Like many Blaeu county maps, its cartographic content ultimately drew upon the earlier work of Christopher Saxton and John Speed. Blaeu’s contribution was to recast that inherited geographical information through exceptionally refined engraving, lettering, colouring, heraldry and ornamental design.

Today, the map provides an attractive record of historic Gloucestershire, linking the county town and Severn Vale with the Cotswolds, Forest of Dean and the communities distributed among its traditional hundreds.