Old Sussex Mapped


Morden's Sussex 1695


 

 

Contents

Introduction 
The whole map 
Index sheet to parts of the map 
Gazetteer, place names 
Map features 
Robert Morden 
Other maps 

Introduction
MAP BACKGROUND

Edmund Gibson wrote in preface to this map series: "The Maps are all new engrav'd, either according to Surveys never before published, or according to such as have been made and printed since Saxton and Speed. Where actual Surveys could be had, they were purchased at any rate; and for the rest, one of the best copies extant was sent to some of the most knowing Gentlemen in each county, with a request to supply the defects, rectifie the positions, and correct the false spellings. And that nothing might be wanting to render them as complete and accurate as might be, this while business was committed to Mr. Robert Morden, a person of known abilities in these matters…Upon the whole, we need not scruple to affirm that they are by much the fairest and most correct of any that have yet appeared." Quoted from Chubb, 1927, pg. 94

Some noteable improvements in this map over earlier maps of Sussex, namely that:

1)Coastal counties improved by the incorporation of detail from the sea charts of Greenville Collins, and the modernization of place-names began with the efforts of Gibson and Morden.

2)However, map is actually "crudely drawn, decoratively uninteresting, and the delineation of the coastline is a slavish copy from Speed's map of the county" See Gough's evaluation.

3)Longitude based on the meridian of St. Paul's

Published in Camden's Britanniae, newly translated into English. Published by Edmund Gibson. London, A. Swalle and A. and J. Churchill, 1695.
 

Robert Morden
 Robert Morden was a London bookseller from 1669 until his death in 1703. He specialised in the geographical field and was himself something of a cartographer and a publisher. Throughout the 17th and most of the 18th centuries, there was little distinction between the activity of book or print-selling and that of publishing: many booksellers were also printers or engravers. They undertook the sale of eachothers' work and often combined to meet the high cost of publishing a new map or reissue of an old atlas, even if the original plates were still available.
References :Printed Maps of Susex, 1575-1900, D. Kingsley. Sussex Record Society, Volume 72. Produced by Alan Sutton Publishing limited 17a. Brunswick Road, Glouster.

Morden's Sussex, contents 
Old Sussex Mapped 

Map PM335