Saxton, Christopher
Christopher Saxton (c. 1540 – c. 1610) was an English cartographer. He produced the first county maps of England and Wales. His childhood and education is not well understood but he may have attended the predecessor school to Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, Wakefield and also Cambridge University. It is supposed that he learned mapmaking from John Rudd, the vicar of Dewsbury and Thornhill. He was commissioned to begin a survey of England, financed by Thomas Seckford of Suffolk, Saxton began the work in 1574; in 1577 he extended his survey to Wales. The first plates were engraved in 1574, and they were complete in 1578. The maps were produced in the Atlas of the Counties of England and Wales published in 1579. The atlas was popular and influential; cartographers including John Speed would add to and adapt Saxton's work. Saxton may have engraved the maps of the Welsh counties himself: the remainder of the atlas was engraved by Dutch and Flemish artists.
Key Border County Between England and Wales.
Montgomery shire.
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This is John Speed's map of the county of Montgomeryshire, Wales. Engraved in 1610, it was included in a 1646 edition of Speed's The Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine. Speed derived this work from Christopher Saxton's extremely rare 1579 map of the county and added updated detail including the attractive town plan. The map is richly detailed, showing towns, abbeys, castles, forests, and parklands. The countryside's mountainous terrain is shown pictorially. An inset plan in the upper left details the castle and town of Montgomery. In it, a key labels the important streets, locations of the castle itself, and the city's wall (ruined since 1402.) The map includes a beautifully rendered compass rose, and the arms of Phillip Herbert (1584 - 1650). Herbert was the fourth Earl of Pembroke, and a favorite of King James I (1566 - 1625), who made Pembroke the Earl of Montgomery in 1605. (more details)