Vintage Esso Map of the South Coast

Around the area

The organisation of this map reflects its title: roads lead from London towards the South Coast. The capital occupies the upper centre, while the English Channel stretches across the bottom. Salisbury and Christchurch define the western reach, and the Kent coast closes the eastern side. Taylor uses the intervening countryside generously, giving inland towns and villages almost as much visual interest as the seaside destinations that provide the journey’s apparent goal.

In the west, Salisbury and Winchester offer prominent architectural landmarks before the routes reach Southampton and the New Forest. Lyndhurst, Beaulieu and Lymington appear among the forest roads, with small scenes suggesting a landscape distinct from the more closely settled country farther east. Southampton faces its water, while Portsmouth and Southsea form another maritime focus. The Solent links these mainland places visually with the Isle of Wight, whose outline receives unusually generous space within the composition.

The island can be read almost as a map within the map. Cowes, Newport and Ryde provide principal points of reference, while Sandown, Shanklin and Ventnor follow the eastern and southern shore. The Needles mark the western end, and inland routes connect the coastal settlements. This clear separation by water makes the Isle of Wight immediately recognisable, yet its road network keeps it part of the larger touring landscape rather than simply a decorative offshore shape.

Across Sussex, the coastline moves through Chichester’s neighbourhood towards Bognor Regis, Worthing and Brighton. Inland, Arundel, Midhurst and Petworth create alternative routes through the countryside. Farther east, Lewes stands behind the coast, while Beachy Head is given a strong visual presence near Eastbourne. Hastings, Rye and Winchelsea continue the sequence. The small illustrations constantly change the scale of attention, taking the viewer from a broad coastal journey to a particular building or nearby historical association.

Kent occupies the eastern third of the sheet. Canterbury sits within a network reaching Margate, Ramsgate, Sandwich and Dover, with Folkestone farther along the Channel shore. The Medway towns appear to the north, linked towards the Thames estuary. Between the coasts, Maidstone, Sevenoaks and Tunbridge Wells provide inland centres, while the map identifies castles and country houses among the connecting roads. Romney Marsh has its own distinctive quieter pattern of scattered places beside the southeastern edge.

The country between London and the coast is equally rewarding. Guildford, Dorking and Reigate give structure to the Surrey routes, with literary and personal associations scattered nearby. A table of distances from London supplies the practical counterpart to Taylor’s fanciful figures and decorative borders. Sailing vessels fill the Channel, and the large compass rose turns open water into an important part of the design. Together these elements evoke a journey undertaken for pleasure, with time to stop and look. For a viewer today, the pleasure can be more personal: recognising a childhood resort, finding the town where relatives lived, or following a once familiar road through a landscape still recognisable beneath the artist’s playful selection of buildings, characters and stories from the southern counties of England.