Buy this book on-line

LEA, Philip : Cambridge-Shire and the Great Levell of ye Fenns Extending into the Adjacent Shires according to Surveys as it is now drained ..

400 x 485 mm., in early outline colour with recent embellishments, lower centrefold split, repaired, otherwise in good condition.

Although unsigned this map was engraved by Francis Lamb. The earlier Saxton plate of the county included several neighbouring ones and Lea desired a new plate. The map draws on Sir Jonas Moore’s great survey on the Fenns published in 16 sheets in 1684. It features inset plans of Cambridge and Ely both with keys and is extensively decorated with 27 coats of arms. This is a very rare map as it was not acquired by George Willdey at the sale of Anne Lea’s stock in 1730. It was acquired by the Bowles family whose own imprints are even rarer. Although the original Christopher Saxton copper plates came into the hands of Philip Lea sometime in or before 1689 the fate of two of the plates is unclear, Devon and Northumberland never reappear suggesting that they might have been lost in the Great Fire of London in 1666. They were replaced by plates engraved for Lea; that of Devon is signed by the engraver Francis Lamb. For further details of Lea’s issues of the Saxton atlas please see the entries for Saxton. Skelton (1970) p. 174; Tooley, The Map Collector no. 15 Ca19.

Bibliophile Bookbase for antiquarian books, maps and prints.