This is only the second large scale map by Christopher Greenwood (1786-1855) preceded only by that of Yorkshire. He was a surveyor and mapmaker from Yorkshire who settled in Wakefield by about 1815 before moving to London in 1818. His first large-scale survey was of Yorkshire published in 1817. This second survey of Lancashire was co-published with William Fowler, also of Wakefield, in 1818. His brother John was yet to join him in the enterprise. The map is drawn by R. Creighton and engraved by Samuel John Neele (1758-1824) and his son James Neele (1791-1868).

The early 1800s was a time of rapid change in the landscape with the burgeoning industrial revolution. Their surveys utilised the latest system of triangulation adopted by Colonel Mudge and his surveyors for the Ordnance Survey. Indeed, they were in open competition with them. The Greenwood maps were coloured as opposed to the more functional black and white Ordnance Surveys of the period.

Engraved in wonderful large scale at one inch to the mile, it differentiates between woods and plantations, heaths and commons, different types of waterway, roads and of course canals. Both watermills and windmills are identified indicating their significance to the local economy. A large view of Liverpool from the sea is placed beneath the title cartouche. On this example someone has carefully laid the railway network as it existed around the mid-1840s. Rodger (1972) 256; Whittaker (1938) 351; Worms & Baynton-Williams (2011).