The first printed map of Cheshire in the usual second state first published. In the year 1577 Saxton produced the greatest number of county maps, twelve bear the date. This was most probably due to the protection afforded that year by Queen Elizabeth I and granted for a period of ten years. The omission of Saxton’s name from the Burghley proof example led Evans and Lawrence to conclude that the Cheshire was one of those produced earlier in the year. It is engraved by Francis Scatter and along with that of Staffordshire they are the only two attributed to him. Indeed these are his only known works. The first state of the map omits the Christopher Saxton imprint below the scale of miles.

Christopher Saxton produced one of the earliest national surveys of any kind and the first uniformly conceived cartographic survey of England and Wales. It was begun in about 1574 and completed by 1579: ‘in the long list of British atlases the first name is also the greatest, the name of Christopher Saxton’ (Chubb). Saxton (c.1542–c.1610) was born in the Dunningley, West Riding of Yorkshire. While the details of his early life are sketchy, it is known that he attended Cambridge University, and in 1570 he was apprenticed as a map maker to John Rudd, vicar of Dewsbury. Saxton began work on his county maps in about 1574. In 1577 he received letters patent from Elizabeth I protecting his maps against plagiarism for the next ten years. As well as the Queen’s protection, Saxton also enjoyed the patronage of Thomas Seckford, Master of the Queen’s Requests, whose mottoes are found on the maps.

Evans and Lawrence wrote that he ‘left a legacy of maps of the counties of England and Wales from which succeeding generations of map-makers drew extensively … amazingly accurate in detail, [the atlas] survives as testimony to his expertise when surveying techniques and comprehension of the mathematical sciences were still limited.’ They are arguably the most highly prized by collectors of county maps.

Barber ‘Mapmaking in England, ca.1470-1650’ in The History of Cartography volume 3 part 2 pp. 1623-31; Chubb (1927) I; Evans & Lawrence (1979) pp. 9–43; Harley, Brian The Map Collector no. 8 pp. 2-11; Hind (1952-55) vol. 1 p. 73; Lawrence, Heather ‘Christopher Saxton’ in The Map Collector 27 pp. 16-18; Shirley (1980) no. 128; Shirley (2004) T.Sax 1b-e; Skelton (1970) 1.