Britain's first road map
Volume 18 Number 2, Hilary 2006
Detail showing area around Oxford
The Gough Map is the oldest surviving road map of Great Britain, dating from around 1360. Drawn in pen, ink and coloured washes on two skins of vellum, the map measures 56 x 115 cm. The collector Richard Gough donated it to the Bodleian Library in 1809, along with the rest of his maps, prints, books and drawings. The map's earlier provenance is something of a mystery: all we know is that Gough bought it at a sale of antiquarian Thomas Martin's collection in 1774 for half a crown. The identity of the mapmaker is unknown; the clues to the date it was made come from place names that have changed over time, and from studies of the hand used to inscribe those names onto the map.
Generations of Oxford geographers will have seen the iconic image that is the Gough Map which hangs in the Map Room of the New Bodleian. But only now is it becoming possible to interpret it more fully. I have been collaborating with a multidisciplinary team based at Queen's University Belfast, with input from their Departments of Geography, English and Archaeology, and the Centre for Data Digitisation and Analysis, on Mapping the Realm, a research project funded by the British Academy to develop an interactive online version of the Gough Map.
The project is seeking to find out more about this intriguing map. In 2004 Hampshire-based DigiData Technologies made an initial high-resolution scan of the original for an Oxford Digital Library project, and related it to the contemporary Ordnance Survey national grid, a process called geo-rectification. Researchers at the School of Geography at Queen's have used this scan to analyse the map employing a Geographical Information System (GIS). GIS has made it possible to study the map's content and attempt to assess how it might have been made, who made it and what it was made for. As Catherine Delano-Smith, editor of Imago Mundi - the international journal for the history of cartography - says: 'The (apparent) uniqueness of the Gough Map poses a problem with wide-ranging implications in all sorts of directions (why it was made, where the material came from, what function it served, who paid for it, where it was executed - it is a remarkably skilled artefact). If answers to such questions are ever to be ventured, and light on the context of the map ever to be shed, it is essential to have ready access to as technically clear a reproduction as possible.'
There is no record of any similar medieval map at such scale or accuracy. More than 600 settlements are included on the map, along with almost 200 rivers, and a rudimentary route network extending to 4,700 km in length. Indeed, not only is the Gough Map the first map to show roads and distances, it is also the first to depict the coastline of Great Britain in a recognisable form. The concept of marking road distances on a map was not to be repeated until Thomas Jenner's 1671 map of Britain. In effect, once created, the Gough Map did not require updating for around 250 years.
Cartographic experts believe the Gough Map to be a copy of an earlier map. Its creator shows significant local knowledge of Lincolnshire and south Yorkshire, which leads to speculation that further versions may have been made and held regionally. The earliest compilation date for a Gough Map prototype is likely to be around 1280 in the reign of Edward I (the Bodleian copy dates from the time of Edward III). In The King's Two Maps published in 2004, Daniel Birkholz described it as 'a map to engage the imaging of early English imperial travellers, especially the aristocratic and clerical elites backing Edward I's aims of overlordship in Britain'. So, was the original of the Gough Map an official compilation for government use, perhaps amended for local use on the Bodleian version?
Although the map is undated, certain features provide clues. The construction of Coventry's town walls is instructive - work was begun in 1355 and a wall does appear. The settlement of Sheppey became Queenborough in 1366, but is still marked as 'Shephey', which presents an 11-year dating window. The style of the handwritten place names also suggests the mid- to late fourteenth century.
Once you grasp that the map shows east at the top, the outline of Great Britain quickly becomes familiar. Rivers are given strategic importance, with the Severn, Thames and Humber predominant, and even the loop of the Wear at Durham readily evident. Other physical features are identified by symbols, with trees locating forests, for example Sherwood. Throughout, the map shows towns in some detail, the lettering for London and York coloured gold, while other principal medieval settlements such as Bristol, Chester, Gloucester, Lincoln, Norwich, Oxford, Salisbury and Winchester are lavishly illustrated. Routes between towns are marked as red lines, with distances included in roman numerals, also marked in red.
Particularly accurate, in terms of cartography, is the area between Hadrian's Wall and The Wash, as well as the distances between towns along the south coast. In terms of overall positional accuracy, DigiData's geo-rectification work has found that it is the Oxford area where locations have the closest match with the British national grid, which may well be related to the fact that by 1340 geographical coordinates for Oxford had been successfully calculated by William Rede, a fellow of Merton.
It seems almost certain that the cartographer did not know the shape of Scotland - he drew it as a peninsula with indentations where he believed river mouths existed. The Clyde and Forth are easily identifiable, as is Edinburgh, but the general uncertainty can be attributed to Scotland's status as a foreign country in the mid-fourteenth century.
The red lines probably indicate a selection of routes. Surprisingly, there is no road linking London to the south coast, and Exeter is the only Channel port joined by road to the capital. Although there is a bridge over the Medway at Rochester, the London to Dover road is one of several known roads that the cartographer has omitted. Others include London to Ipswich, York to Newcastle, Icknield Way, Fosse Way and part of Watling Street. Are the red lines therefore actual roads, or merely a means to show distances? And why are certain towns poorly served by roads? York is linked to the rest of the network only by a northerly route via Leeming. Of the ten largest borough populations for 1348, Plymouth, King's Lynn and Colchester are not associated with red lines, while Lincoln's connections are only with local roads.
There are four basic groups of symbols to represent settlements: houses, multiple houses, town walls and castles. The complexity of these town symbols seems to represent that town's relative status. In addition, cathedral cities and monasteries are represented by crossed spires, and military sites by towers and/or crenellations.
Brutus and the Trojans
Further symbolisation and decoration are somewhat fanciful, perhaps best illustrated in south Devon with a major reference to Brutus and the Trojans' mythical landing, and the legend that 'a race of kings will be born from your stock', as Brutus was told in a dream. On the map, it is included as a statement of geographical fact.
The map has provisionally been made interactive and is accessible via the Queen's or Bodleian Map Room websites (see below for details). As well as seeing a digital version of the Gough Map, researchers can also identify groups of features included on the map, which are subdivided into the following categories: Fords and passes, Roads, Estuaries, Forests, Lakes, Seas, Rivers, Places, Regions, Historical information, Mountains, Islands and Coast. You can select one (or more) of these and see the details highlighted on the map, using the information digitized by the Queen's team. By concentrating on one of these fields, it is possible to 'interrogate' the map. For example, should you choose to click on Oxford, you find that the city is inscribed as 'Oxonia' on the map, and its symbol features four buildings, one spired church, plus a castle; an Ordnance Survey national grid reference is also supplied. By exploring the historical information section, you can learn about Brutus and the Trojans, or perhaps find out more on Hadrian's Wall.
We hope that Mapping the Realm will inspire future research into this enigmatic cartographic masterpiece. According to Jack Langton, Fellow and Tutor at St John's: '[the map's] significance in the history of cartography and in the geographical conceptualisation of Britain is immense. No fully legible representation of it has been readily available until now. The proposed project to make a completely legible version freely available to scholars and the public at large would provide enormous impetus to the use of this unique historical resource, and to interest in and study of its content and construction.'
Nick Millea is Map Curator of the Bodleian Library. His book, The Gough Map: The Earliest Road Map of Great Britain, is scheduled for publication by the Bodleian Library later this year.
The Mapping the Realm website can be found at: www.qub.ac.uk/urban_mapping/gough_map/
The Bodleian Map Room website linking to the project can be found at: www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/guides/maps/herefrme.htm
Copies of The Gough Map: The Map of Great Britain circa ad 1360. A facsimile in full colour, 1998 (PS0014) can be bought from the Bodleian Library shop, price £15 (excluding p&p).