Old Map of Moray and Nairn by Joan Blaeu, 1654

Joan Blaeu’s Old Map of Moray and Nairn

Joan Blaeu’s map of Moray and Nairn was published in Amsterdam in 1654 as part of his celebrated Atlas of Scotland. Its original Latin title, Moravia Scotiae provincia, ex Timothei Pont schedis descripta et aucta per Robertum Gordonium a Straloch, explains an important part of its history: the map was drawn from the surveys of Timothy Pont and enlarged or revised by Robert Gordon of Straloch.

This combination of Scottish fieldwork and Dutch engraving produced one of the most detailed seventeenth-century maps of the country around the Moray Firth. It records the coastal plain, river valleys, wooded country and Highland approaches long before modern roads, railways and expanding towns altered their relationship with one another.

Timothy Pont and Robert Gordon of Straloch

Timothy Pont travelled extensively through Scotland during the late sixteenth century, undertaking an extraordinary survey of a country that had never previously been mapped in comparable regional detail. He recorded rivers, settlements, churches, castles, estates and landscape features, often working in difficult and remote surroundings.

Pont did not live to see his projected Scottish atlas published. His manuscript maps were eventually entrusted to Robert Gordon of Straloch, an Aberdeenshire landowner, scholar and cartographer. Gordon examined, corrected and supplemented Pont’s surviving work, drawing upon his own geographical knowledge and other available information.

The title of the Moray map gives Gordon unusually prominent credit for this contribution. His revisions helped transform Pont’s working survey into material suitable for Joan Blaeu’s atlas workshop in Amsterdam.

Blaeu’s engravers then translated the Scottish source material onto copperplates, adding carefully arranged lettering, boundary colour and an ornamental cartouche. The finished Scottish volume appeared in 1654 as part of Blaeu’s Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, sive Atlas Novus and became the first printed atlas devoted specifically to Scotland.

From Inverness to the River Spey

The map depicts a much broader area than its modern title might initially suggest. Inverness appears towards the western side, close to the meeting of the River Ness and the Moray Firth. Part of Loch Ness is shown beyond it, leading the eye towards the mountainous country of the interior.

Eastward, the coast passes Nairn, Forres and Elgin before reaching the country around the River Spey. The Black Isle and Cromarty Firth appear across the water in the northwestern portion of the engraving, helping to place Moray within the wider geography of the eastern Highlands.

The Rivers Nairn, Findhorn and Spey descend from the uplands towards the firth. They provide a natural structure for the map, connecting inland glens and scattered settlements with the more fertile and closely populated coastal country.

Elgin occupies an important position near the centre of historic Moray. Its cathedral, royal burgh status and surrounding agricultural lands made it one of northern Scotland’s most significant regional centres. Forres and Nairn also appear prominently, while numerous smaller villages, estates and fortified houses fill the countryside between them.

Historic Moray and Nairnshire

Moray was an ancient province whose historical extent did not always correspond with the later county of Morayshire, also known as Elginshire. Its name was associated with a much wider territory in medieval Scotland, while county and administrative boundaries continued to evolve over subsequent centuries.

Nairnshire was one of Scotland’s smallest historic counties. It occupied the country around Nairn and the lower River Nairn, between Inverness-shire and Moray. Its scattered boundaries and detached portions could make it particularly difficult to represent using modern expectations of county geography.

Blaeu’s map should therefore be understood as a depiction of a historic region rather than a precise representation of present-day council boundaries. It includes adjoining territory where necessary to show rivers, coastlines and the relationships between neighbouring communities.

Reading the Seventeenth-Century Landscape

The density of old place names is one of the map’s greatest attractions. Familiar towns can be found among many smaller communities, estates and strongholds, some of which have disappeared or survive only through the names of farms, roads and local districts.

Hills are represented pictorially, creating an impression of the rising country south of the coastal plain. Woodland appears as groups of individually engraved trees, while towns, churches and castles are indicated through conventional miniature symbols.

These features should not be interpreted as exact architectural portraits or scientifically measured landforms. Roads are not shown systematically, and distances do not always conform to modern mapping. The engraving instead presents the region as Pont and Gordon understood it: a landscape organised by waterways, settlements, estates and natural barriers.

The broad waters of the Moray Firth provide breathing space above the closely engraved countryside. Along the lower-right edge, the Latin title is enclosed within a colourful cartouche, while a separate scale of miles is placed nearby. Compared with some of Blaeu’s more theatrical maps, the decoration is restrained, allowing the geography and extraordinary wealth of place names to dominate.

A Connection with the North of Scotland

This historic county map preserves Moray and Nairn before the growth of modern Inverness, the coming of the railway and the development of today’s transport network. Its rivers, firths and old communities still give the region its identity, but their seventeenth-century setting feels wonderfully distant.

For those whose family story belongs to Elgin, Forres, Nairn, Inverness or the surrounding countryside, the map offers a compelling connection with the north of Scotland. It also makes a distinctive fine art print for anyone drawn to the Moray coast, its open skies and the Highland country rising beyond the firth.