One of only seven known examples of only the very first diagrammatic road map of England. It was published by William Berry in 1679 and is derived from John Ogilby’s landmark ‘Britannia’ published in 1675. The roads are the main feature and are mostly laid down in virtually straight double ruled lines; there is not even a coastline. Most emanate from London depicted as a roundel with crude town plan. The computed distance in miles between towns is plotted. Post-towns and Market-towns are keyed, the latter bearing a letter identifying the ‘Day of the Week the Market is kept’. There is an extension upper right to Edinburgh. The engraver is identified as John Rich (fl.1679-80) who signed the decorative border lower right and is associated with only two maps, both for Berry.

There were very few diagrammatic maps ever published of England and Wales. The majority were separately issued and are extremely rare. Ogilby’s ‘Britannia’ was certainly available by 18-22 November 1675 when it was advertised for sale in the ‘London Gazette’. By 13-17 January 1676 Ogilby was complaining in the same journal that ‘Certia[sic] tables being taken out of Mr. Ogilby’s Britannia, and Printed in five sheets with Mr. Speeds Maps’. These were simply typographic lists of towns along each road. No mileage figures are displayed. Ogilby produced four similar sheets with lists of towns. Neither Speed’s nor Ogilby’s works represent any kind of recognisable ‘map’. The first ‘map’ derived from the work of John Ogilby was published by John Adams in twelve sheets in 1677. That map and his two-sheet derivative published in 1679 were both accurate maps in that the roads are laid out on a recognisable map of England and Wales.

The first diagrammatic map to be published was this by William Berry in 1679. It was advertised in the ‘Term Catalogues’ for 19-22 June 1679 as ‘lately set forth in one Broadside, the great Roads of England, shewing all the Towns you pass through, and in what Shire they are in …’ There are two later states published in the next century but of this first state Shirley recorded only two known examples. We are now aware of a total of seven some of which are listed below; it has not been seen on the market for fifteen years.

BL (Maps *1205.(1.))
Cambridge University Library (Maps.aa.35.67.1)
Royal Geographical Society (mr Eng & Wales G.197)
National Library of Scotland (Newman.1019)
Private American collection

William Berry (1639-1718) was born the son of a baker near Tamworth, Staffordshire. He was apprenticed to Joseph Moxon in 1656 and made free in 1664. He was married to Appolonia who appears to have been an heiress of some kind. In September 1678 Robert Morden (fl. 1669, d. 1703) and William Berry petitioned the crown for “a licence to do all general and particular maps of the several parts of the world according to an alphabeticall manner”. Morden’s connection with what appears to be the birth of the large folio atlas is not heard of again. Berry began publishing a series of large two sheet maps with a group of the world and continents advertised in the ‘London Gazette’, from 1-5 July 1680. Through much of the 1680s Berry published nearly forty maps. From the late 1680s he offered them bound together as a collection of maps with no title, examples of which are very rare. Bennett (2007) p. 19; Fordham (1924) p. 12; Hodson (2000) pp. 493-506; Magna Gallery (1982) ‘Antique Maps …’ no. 24; Shirley (1988) Berry 1.1; refer Shirley (2004) T.Berr-1a; Tooley’s Dictionary (1999-2004); Tyacke (1978) no. 81 & pp. 109-10; Weinreb & Douwma 17 (1977) no. 12; Worms & Baynton-Williams (2011).