This is arguably one of the most decorative folio maps of the county of Middlesex. It is lined with the 92 coats of arms of all the Free Companies of London and is headed by the arms of the City of London. It was published in Emanuel Bowen’s ‘Large English Atlas’. Donald Hodson describes the Large English Atlas as ‘by far the most important eighteenth-century English atlas to be published before the appearance of John Cary’s New and Correct English atlas in 1787’. Almost without exception the maps were carefully based on the latest surveys available. It is derived from John Warburton’s separately published rare two-sheet map of 1749. No doubt itself in drawn from the work of John Rocque and his large survey in 16 sheets published in 1746.

Hodson lays out the various states of the map, the first two being proof issues. This is state 6 of 8 which was issued from the c.1767. The engraver Richard Seale dedicates the map to Thomas Holles Pelham, Duke of Newcastle and the Lord Lieutenant of Middlesex and Westminster at the time. Provenance: Clive A. Burden Ltd. 2013; private English collection. Hodson I pp. 175-6 & II no. 221 & p. 133 state f; Worms & Baynton-Williams (2011).