Alder Copse -  Old Folding Maps

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Mapping of London

Our journey starts in 1707 with a map that shows London still not much bigger than the area within its ancient walls. Cramped within these confines was a population of maybe 550,000 or so. As today, London was a city of migrants, initially mainly from the British Isles but increasingly as time went by it became a haven for those looking for a better life or fleeing persecution from all over the world. By 1801 the census revealed a city of over 1 million souls, rising to around 3 million by 1850, 1 million of whom were born elsewhere. The migrants brought with them the idea and skills that played a major part in making London the largest and the richest city the world had ever seen. The city’s banks controlled more assets than much of the rest of the world combined.

This seething mass of people needed to be able to travel around without losing their way and the wealthy especially did not want to get lost in the crime infested slums of London’s back streets. The  cartographers of London rose magnificently to the task creating between them over 300 maps of the city during the years from 1550 to 1850 (see Dartington & Howgego - Maps of London 1550 - 1850). Their customers had to pay of course, and often handsomely, but still a few mapmaker's ended up in poverty. Here we show just a few of their creations and we hope our reproductions have done justice to all those surveyors, engravers, printers and publishers who mapped London over the preceding three centuries.

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