Old Map of Middlesex by Robert Morden, 1695
Price range: £35.55 through £59.95
Middlesex by Robert Morden, first published 1695
Perhaps no map in this group demonstrates change more dramatically than Middlesex. The London of the 1690s occupies only a corner of an overwhelmingly rural county, and its tightly packed streets contrast with villages, commons, fields and wooded ground elsewhere. This museum-quality giclée reproduction retains the antique map’s original lettering and ornament. Produced on textured fine-art paper with archival pigment inks; supplied unframed.
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Paper choice is essential to the authenticity of our maps. We use specially sourced 190gsm paper made in the UK from pure materials and traditionally pressed with natural woollen felts. This process creates a subtle, randomly textured surface that closely resembles an original antique document. Likewise the use of premium quality ink fully saturates the paper, producing remarkable clarity, depth, and historical character. Colour fastness and sharpness will remain good for in excess of 100 years!
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About the map
Perhaps no map in this group demonstrates change more dramatically than Middlesex. The London of the 1690s occupies only a corner of an overwhelmingly rural county, and its tightly packed streets contrast with villages, commons, fields and wooded ground elsewhere.
Map Details
- Original title: Middlesex
- Cartographer: Robert Morden (c.1650–1703)
- First published: 1695, in Edmund Gibson’s edition of William Camden’s Britannia
- Area: Middlesex
- Places to locate: London, Westminster, Brentford, Harrow and Enfield
What makes this engraving distinctive?
- A compact but remarkably intricate engraved plan of London appears beside the Thames at the south-eastern edge of the county.
- The coloured boundaries divide the county into historic hundreds, with names including Edmonton, Elthorne and Spelthorne.
- The top border is marked in Minutes of Time; a vividly coloured title cartouche occupies the lower-right corner.
History
The engraving shows the north-western hinterland of the capital before continuous metropolitan development swallowed its villages. Watford lies just beyond the county boundary, while Harrow, Barnet, Enfield and Brentford help the reader orient the northern and western districts. The Thames forms a great curving southern edge. Through the historic hundreds, Morden shows an administrative geography that has almost entirely disappeared from the language of present-day London.
Around the area
Look closely at the miniature London street pattern: it is an unusually rich detail for a county map and draws the eye immediately eastwards along the Thames. Contrast it with the expansive spaces marked as wooded country and commons around Edmonton, Finchley and the western villages. The minutes-of-time border is another distinctive characteristic. It expresses longitude in a way modern readers seldom encounter, relating geographical position to the passage of time. The decorative cartouche at the lower right balances that technical information with bright, curling ornament. Middlesex is thus a revealing document of urban growth, vanished local divisions and the cartographer’s efforts to make measurement intelligible.
Made as a fine-art print: Archival pigment inks on subtly textured paper; supplied unframed and carefully packed. The historic boundaries and spellings reflect the cartographer’s era, not present-day administrative geography.
For the cartographer’s own descriptions of Britain, read our article Robert Morden’s Britain in 1693: The Mapmaker’s Own Words.