This is the EARLIEST SURVIVING PRINTED MAP OF KENT and if shown to date from 1570 the earliest of any English county. That of Christopher Saxton dated 1575 is found with the neighbouring counties of Sussex, Surrey and Middlesex. This map is also the first to show the ancient ‘lathes’ of the county believed to date back to Jute occupation in the fifth century AD. There were originally seven lathes but by 1295 this had been reduced to five. The maps attribution is unclear, it appears that the engraver left a space beneath the scale of miles for an imprint but it remained empty. The engraver’s identity is not known but Livett (1938) suggested that it might be the same person who engraved Saxton’s Northants etc. and Worcester. Taylor suggested that it might be Nicolas Reynolds although a comparison with Saxton’s Hertfordshire did not seem to support this. Because of its vulnerability to invasion by the French the county of Kent had always been of special cartographic significance. Taylor in his work on ‘Tudor Geography’ refers to a map of Kent cited in William Lambarde’s manuscript of the ‘Perambulation of Kent’, 1570.

In early 1575 Christopher Saxton’s own map was printed which surprisingly lacked scale taking in as it did the neighbouring counties of Surrey, Sussex and Middlesex. In 1576 William Lambarde published the first edition of his ‘Perambulation of Kent’, the earliest printed history of an English county in which he refers to a ‘Chart of the Shire’ (Hind). Although this map is drawn at approximately the same scale as the Saxton it only features the county of Kent. There is the distinct possibility that the missing 1570 map and this attributed to 1576 are one and the same. Tyacke and Huddy in their study of Tudor mapmaking refer to the Saxton and this work and that they differ in spelling and toponym. This they state supports the existence of a different 1570 map. If Saxton was as we know surveying for his own map why would they not differ? The fact that only one copy of the Lambarde book bears a copy of the map might also indicate that it was issued not in 1576 but in 1570 and that they are one and the same map? Surely it does not make sense to attribute the copperplate map to 1576, a book which contains two ‘woodcut’ maps. Taylor suggested that it might be the work of the engraver Nicholas Reynolds. The evidence for this comes from a letter by Reynolds to Abraham Ortelius written in 1572 (Hessels no. 43). Lambarde’s protégé was Philip Symonson the superintendent of Rochester Bridge and later mayor of Rochester. In 1596 he would extend this work with a large two sheet map of the county. It coincided with the second edition of Lambarde’s work.

One further possibility worth investigating is that this might be the lost John Norden map of Kent. It is known that a map was produced as that of the county in Camden’s ‘Britannia’ of 1607 credits Norden as its source. A manuscript description is not found in the Queen’s manuscript dated to 1595 so a date of 1596/97 is ascribed to it. However we do have to wonder whether it was ever engraved as few were. There appears to be only two recorded examples of the first state; at the RGS (264 D 32) and at a Christie’s sale in July 2000. There was a second state of the map again issued separately but dated to c.1625. This third state is dated to c.1720 and is also issued separately. All dates are derived from one or two books in which it is found, or watermark evidence. Only six examples of the third state are recorded by Burgess. Provenance: Leadenhall Galleries; private English collection. A wonderful rare item. Barber ‘History of Cartography’ Vol. 3 pt. II pp. 1612 1626 1631; Box, E. G. ‘Lambarde’s “Carde of this Shyre”‘, Archaeologia Cantiana, 38 (1926), 89-95; Box, ‘Lambarde’s “Carde of this Shyre,” third issue, with roads added’, Archaeologia Cantiana, 39 (1927), 141-8; Burgess ‘Kent’ 2.iii; Evans & Lawrence ‘Christopher Saxton’ p. 40; Hannen, H. ‘An account of a map of Kent dated 1596’, Archaeologia Cantiana, 30 (1914), 85-92; Hannen, ‘Further notes on Phil. Symonson’, Archaeologia Cantiana, 31 (1915), 271-4; Hind I p. 224; Kitchen, Frank ‘John Norden (c.1547-1625)’ in ‘Imago Mundi’ no. 49 p. 48; Livett, G.M. ‘Early Kent maps (sixteenth century)’, Archaeologia Cantiana, 49 (1938), 247-77; Livett, ‘Supplementary note on early Kent maps’, Archaeologia Cantiana, 50 (1939), 140-6; O’Shea Gallery ‘Kent and The Channel’ June 1986 no. 5; Taylor ‘Tudor Geography’ I p. 32; Tyacke & Huddy ‘Christopher Saxton and Tudor map-making’ pp. 29-30.