The Queen’s Atlas 9781851246205 Hardback

Nowadays, we take for granted the ready availability of maps of all kinds. In mid-Tudor England, they were rare. All this was to change in 1579 when Christopher Saxton, a farmer from the West Riding of Yorkshire, became the first cartographer to make a published atlas of all the counties of England and Wales. This book traces the story of Saxtons life and legacy by reconstructing his extraordinary mapmaking project alongside the crucial nature of the support and encouragement he received from Queen Elizabeth I and her court.Saxtons atlas became the template for most detailed maps of the country for almost two centuries: it is hard to exaggerate its importance. For many, his atlas provided the first detailed image of England and Wales they had ever seen, showing the Elizabethan kingdom as a whole and in its constituent parts. This lavishly illustrated book reproduces all Saxtons county maps together with many other illustrations revealing the forebears and successors to this groundbreaking work. Today, Saxtons maps give us an invaluable cartographic snapshot of late Tudor England.