The Continuation of the Road from London to Flambrugh

A fine example of Ogilby’s engaging strip maps, showing the route from Lincoln to Flambrugh.

While strip-style road maps had existed long before John Ogilby, the Scottish cartographer was the first to popularize their use for land travel through the publication of his atlas Brittania, first issued in 1675. It included 100 maps of British roads, created at a uniform scale of 1 inch to 1 mile.

The large scale allows for the presentation of minute details like individual buildings, brooks and streams, bridges, windmills, ponds, signal beacons and estate halls. Topography is depicted pictorially, with the hills situated according to whether the traveler was descending or ascending. All these details, as well as the compass roses on each strip, would have been of particular relevance to someone traveling by carriage, on horseback, or even by foot.

This particular example shows the end of the route from London to Flamborough, beginning with Lincoln in the lower left and ending on the eastern coast in the upper right. On their journey, the traveler would cross the Humber River to Barton and pass through Hull, Kilham, and Beverley on their way to the coast of the North Sea.

The map contains numerous landmarks that still stand today. Of particular note is the Flamborough lighthouse (far upper right). Built from chalk and completed the year before Britannia was first published, the beacon was never actually lit, but it remains one of the oldest surviving lighthouses in England.

The title cartouche contains an itinerary of the trip flanked by figures of Neptune and Venus, reflecting the close relationship between the destination and the sea.

References: Alan M. MacEachren (1986) A Linear View of the World: Strip Maps as a Unique Form of Cartographic Representation, The American Cartographer, 13:1, 7-26.