History of Cornwall mapping
Maps of the whole county or region, providing an overview of the physical and human landscape. For more detailed maps of rural areas, see Ordnance Survey maps from the 1840s.
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This new Finding placenames guide gathers together ten searchable lists of placenames (or gazetteers) dating from the 1580s through to the present day. Many of these lists of names are from national surveys and mapping initiatives, including those by Timothy Pont, William Roy, John Thomson, and Ordnance Survey. Summary details can be quickly scanned to help find the most relevant list, search for your name, and from there go directly to find and locate the place on our maps.
The new guide is available in our Research Guides section.
Placenames - Map images - National Library of Scotland
Non-Scottish specific:
Converters
The Old Series initially published its maps as County Sets (Essex, Devon then Cornwall), very much following the historic approach to county mapping of the preceding 130 years
The Old Series was surveyed from 1784 to 1869, and resulted in 110 sheets covering England and Wales (only) .
The first maps of the Board of Ordnance were of Kent, but these were engraved and published by Faden; the first maps where the OS surveyed, drew, engraved and published themselves were of Essex.
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After 1813 the body was called the Ordnance Survey of Great Britain (the term "Ordnance Survey" first appearing on the 1810 map of the Isle of Wight).
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As you can see the map is printed in monochrome, uses hatchuring to show slope rather than contours and has very few symbols. There was no
key to explain the few symbols it does have - as the military personnel would be trained in how to use the maps. There isn't even a scale bar!
There were a number of editions of The Large English Atlas from 1755 to about 1787. I have found that the contents of the copies of the atlas I have handled over the years do vary. This list is take from a copy of the atlas in my own collection which has an added undated titlepage but which I am guessing is the 1787 edition. The usual way to date these maps is from the publishers imprint beneath each map.The early editions have the names of J. Tinney, T. Bowles, J. Bowles and Robert Sayer. Later editions have the names of Robert Wilkinson, Robert Sayer and Carington Bowles.
There were a number of editions of The Large English Atlas from 1755 to about 1787. I have found that the contents of the copies of the atlas I have handled over the years do vary. This list is take from a copy of the atlas in my own collection which has an added undated titlepage but which I am guessing is the 1787 edition. The usual way to date these maps is from the publishers imprint beneath each map.The early editions have the names of J. Tinney, T. Bowles, J. Bowles and Robert Sayer. Later editions have the names of Robert Wilkinson, Robert Sayer and Carington Bowles.
All of the Welsh county maps are half page in size and abut each other. So when you find a loose map it will either be with its county partner on the same printed sheet or it will be a single county with no blank margin on one side or with an added margin on one side.
Some of Bowen's county maps are easily recognised by the panels of text filling every available space
| Year | Thumbnail | |
|---|---|---|
| 1607 | Saxton / Kip - Cornwall | 'Cornwall olim pars Danmoniorum' Original copper engraved map of Cornwall issued in 1610 in William Camden's 'Brittania' based upon the work of Christopher Saxton. The map was engraved by William Kip Originally, in 1586, Camden’s work was a detailed historical and topographical description of Britain. Hole & Kip added their maps to this work in 1607. The 1607 edition has latin text printed on the reverse and the later 1637 edition had a plate number added allowing definitive dating to the 1610 edition. |
|
| 1637 c |  |
Saxton, C. / Kip, W. (c. 1637) 'Cornwall olim pars danmoniorum' Attractive and finely engraved map of the county by William Kip after Christopher Saxton. Published in William Camden's Britannia. Features include, top left view of Launceston, a galleon, sea monster and compass rose. Bears the plate numbers I and 2. No text on the back. A few age related marks but a rare item with attractive and early colour. |
| 1673 |  |
Blome, R. (1673) 'A Mapp of the County of Cornwal...' Decorative map of the County by Richard Blome for his publication "Britannia". The largest series of county maps published by Blome, and generally based on those of Speed Maps by Blome are characteristic and attractive. Fine condition, later colour. |
| 1703 |  |
Seller, J. (c. 1703) 15 x 13 Fine map of the county by the Hydrographer and instrument maker John Seller for his "Anglia Contracta". This series of maps were first published in 1695. They were later used in a simplified form by Francis Grose for his "Supplement to the Antiquities of England and Wales", published from 1787. |
| 1722 |  |
Morden, R. (1722) Superbly engraved and decorative map of the county by Robert |
| Year | Thumbnail | |
|---|---|---|
| 1607 | Saxton / Kip - Cornwall | 'Cornwall olim pars Danmoniorum' Original copper engraved map of Cornwall issued in 1610 in William Camden's 'Brittania' based upon the work of Christopher Saxton. The map was engraved by William Kip Originally, in 1586, Camden’s work was a detailed historical and topographical description of Britain. Hole & Kip added their maps to this work in 1607. The 1607 edition has latin text printed on the reverse and the later 1637 edition had a plate number added allowing definitive dating to the 1610 edition. |
|
| 1637 c | |
Saxton, C. / Kip, W. (c. 1637) 'Cornwall olim pars danmoniorum' Attractive and finely engraved map of the county by William Kip after Christopher Saxton. Published in William Camden's Britannia. Features include, top left view of Launceston, a galleon, sea monster and compass rose. Bears the plate numbers I and 2. No text on the back. A few age related marks but a rare item with attractive and early colour. |
| 1673 | |
Blome, R. (1673) 'A Mapp of the County of Cornwal...' Decorative map of the County by Richard Blome for his publication "Britannia". The largest series of county maps published by Blome, and generally based on those of Speed Maps by Blome are characteristic and attractive. Fine condition, later colour. |
| 1703 | |
Seller, J. (c. 1703) 15 x 13 Fine map of the county by the Hydrographer and instrument maker John Seller for his "Anglia Contracta". This series of maps were first published in 1695. They were later used in a simplified form by Francis Grose for his "Supplement to the Antiquities of England and Wales", published from 1787. |
| 1722 | |
Morden, R. (1722) Superbly engraved and decorative map of the county by Robert Morden. From the 1722 edition of Camden's Britannia. Excellent condition with good margins. Some reinforcement of thinning paper to the left not affecting the map. Later colour |
| 1731 |  |
Blome, R. (c. 1731) 'A Table of the Hundreds in the county of Cornwall' |
| 1768 |  |
De La Rochette, L. (1768) 25 x 22 | ''A Modern Map of Cornwall Drawn from an Actual Survey...' |
| 1784 |  |
Conder, T. (1784) 21 x 18 'A Modern Map of Cornwall Drawn from an actual Survey...' Finely engraved and decorative map of the County by Thomas Conder for the publication "The New British Traveller". Features include a cartouche of a rural scene and a coat of arms. Later colour. |
| 1790 |  |
Cary, J. (c. 1790) Sheet 2 of John Cary's Map of England and Wales published in 81 sheets. Covers the area of Central Cornwall. Original colour. |
| 1809 |  |
Cary, J. (1809) | 'A New Map of Cornwall divided into Hundreds exhibiting its Roads, Rivers, Parks...' Superbly engraved map of the county by John Cary. From "Cary's New English Atlas". The atlas was issued in parts from 1801 to 1809 and published as a complete work in 1809. Very fine original hand colour. |
| 1810 |  |
Roper, J. (1810) 24 x 18 Detailed and decorative map of the county by Cole and Roper for The British Atlas. Original hand colouring. Excellent condition. |
 |
Pigot, J. (c. 1826) 36 x 23 Attractive and detailed steel engraved map by James Pigot from his publication Pigot & Co.'s British Atlas. Features include inset map of The Scilly Isles and a fine vignette engraving of St. Mary's Church Truro. Original hand colour. Excellent condition |
|
| 1835 |  |
Lewis, W. (c. 1835) 14 x 10 Detailed and attractive miniature map of the County by William Lewis for his "Lewis's New Traveller's Guide". A particular feature of this charming series of maps is the clear and precise engraving of the roads. Adjacent numbers indicating the distances from London. Also included with the map is the accompanying page of text giving the county information relevant to travellers - principal towns and inns are listed, distances between towns, principal fair dates, and even sites for the best views of the county. Later colour. |
| 1842 c |  |
Becker, F. (c. 1842) 35 x 29 Detailed steel engraved map of the county with original colour. Published in Fisher's County Atlas, the only cartographical work from this company. |
| 1845 |  |
Moule, T. (c. 1845) 26 x 20 Decorative Steel engraved map of the county by Thomas Moule. Inset view of Land's End. Later colour. |
| 1863 |  |
Dispatch Atlas (1863) Early outline colour |
The GB1900 project computerised all the place names and other text on the Second Edition County Series six-inch-to-one-mile maps covering the whole of Great Britain, published by the Ordnance Survey between 1888 and 1914 -- 1900 for short. We are making the resulting data available for download in three formats: These are all large zip archives which may take some time to download. They each include documentation and a copy of the relevant Creative Commons licence.
This ZIP archive includes four tables holding all final raw data from the crowd
The GB1900 project computerised all the place names and other text on the Second Edition County Series six-inch-to-one-mile maps covering the whole of Great Britain, published by the Ordnance Survey between 1888 and 1914 -- 1900 for short. We are making the resulting data available for download in three formats: These are all large zip archives which may take some time to download. They each include documentation and a copy of the relevant Creative Commons licence.
This ZIP archive includes four tables holding all final raw data from the crowd-sourcing system except personal information about volunteers, plus detailed documentation.
This dataset of c. 2.55m rows is based on the raw data from the crowd-sourcing system, but includes just one agreed name for each location, which for about 1.5% of the transcriptions involved manual checking after the online project ended. Each entry also includes the location in OSGB and WGS84 coordinates, and the names of the nation, modern local authority and modern parish containing the location.
The complete gazetteer includes very large numbers of repeating labels, such as "F.P." for footpath. This version is substantially reduced in size by removing the commonest such labels, but still contains many transcriptions which are not necessarily place-names.
The Complete and Abridged GB1900 Gazetteers are made available under a Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike Licence, which means that you may do anything you like with these data, including using them commercially, but you must acknowledge the Great Britain Historical GIS, the GB1900 partners and volunteers, and you may not imply that your work is in any sense endorsed by the GB1900 project or its partners. You must provide a link to the licence, indicating if changes were made. You can redistribute the data but only under the same licence and without additional restrictions.
The GB1900 Raw Dump is made available under a Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Licence. This means that you may do anything you like with these data, including using them commercially, and are not required to acknowledge us. However, you may not give the name "GB1900 Gazetteer", or similar, to any resulting work: invent your own. Only unmodified versions of the gazetteer files may be distributed as the "GB1900 Gazetteer".
The project ran from September 2016 to January 2018, and was a collaboration between the GB Historical GIS, the creators of A Vision of Britain through Time, the National Library of Scotland, the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales, the University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies, the National Library of Wales and the People’s Collection Wales. We are deeply grateful to the more than a thousand online volunteers who did most of the hard work.
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John Speed's fame, which continues to this day, lies with two atlases, The Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine (first published 1612), and the Prospect of the Most Famous Parts of the World (1627). While The Theatre ... started as solely a county atlas, it grew into an impressive world atlas with the inclusion of the Prospect in 1627. The plates for the atlas passed through many hands in the 17th century, and the book finally reached its apotheosis in 1676 when it was published by Thomas Bassett and Richard Chiswell, with a number of important maps added for the first time.
A detailed look at the famous English mapmaker John Speed. Information about all the editions, how to date the maps and lots of illustrations