Horwood’s Plan of the Cities of London & Westminster – Sheet C4
SKU: 8767
Title:
Horwood’s Plan of the Cities of London & Westminster – Sheet C4
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Sheet C4 from Horwood’s ‘Plan of the Cities of London and Westminster…’
Horwood’s plan is a landmark in London mapping on a number of counts. It was the first large-scale survey since John Rocque's, half a century earlier, and Horwood was the first to show individual house numbers. Numbering began in London in the 1760s (although house numbers were not used in official records until much later - the 19th century in some cases) but Horwood was the first to mark them on the map. Read more
The survey took Horwood almost a decade: he began work in 1790, the earliest sheet is dated 1792, and publication was completed in 1799. He remarked that he ‘took every angle, measured almost every line and after that plotted and compared the whole work’ in person.
The map is also an indicator of the changing face of patronage. Earlier map-makers such as William Morgan looked to royal or aristocratic patrons to shoulder the costs of their original, large-scale surveys, and in the mid eighteenth-century John Rocque was sponsored by the Aldermen of the City of London, but Richard Horwood's principal backer was the Phoenix Fire Company, an insurance firm.
Condition & Materials
Copper engraving, 58 x 53 cm, black and white, light marginal spotting and a couple of short nicks and tears, blank verso. Map-sheet C4 from Horwood's magnificent 32-sheet survey showing Millbank and part of Lambeth, including Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens and part of the Oval.
References
Howgego, Printed Maps of London, 200 (1)
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