A later edition of Christopher Saxton’s 1577 map of the county. This is the original plate engraved by Remigius Hogenberg with many alterations, including 3 new armorials, a plan of Lancaster including a further armorial and the addition of roads. Hogenberg was a native of Mechelen and brother to the famous Frans Hogenberg who co-published the ‘Civitates Orbis Terrarum’. This state of the map is the first folio map to show the roads of Lancashire, it is only pre-dated by the playing card map by Robert Morden of 1676. The boundaries of the hundreds are re-engraved and the names added.Philip Lea flourished 1683-1700 as a cartographer, globe and instrument maker and mapseller. His atlases were rarely uniform usually being made to order and his editions of Saxton’s atlas are similarly varying in content although built around his stock of the original plates. These he acquired sometime around 1689, but from who is unknown. After acquisition Lea set about updating them for publication. This process involved extensive re-engraving of the old plates by incorporating new geographical and decorative material. However during this process some copies of the atlas were sold and two distinct issues have been identified with two different versions of the title page. The early edition dated to c.1689 survives in just three known examples. Lea gradually effected the alterations to the plates he desired which included converting the remaining Latin titles to English, the addition of crowns, crosses and mitres to represent various categories of town. Roads were added to the maps following the publication of John Ogilby’s landmark ‘Britannia’ in 1675. Similarly Hundreds were added to the remaining maps as were town plans. The finished set of plates was complete by 1693 and represents their final cartographic form as only the imprints were altered after this date. In the finished form they also appeared in a French edition entitled ‘Atlas Anglois contenant Les Cartes Nouvelles tres Exactes …’ surviving in a unique example. Chubb (1928); Evans & Lawrence (1979) pp. 50-3, 63 & 160; Saunders p. 18; Shirley (2004) T.Sax 1h; Skelton (1970) nos. 110, 112 & 113.