Bowen’s mid 18th century county map incorporates a mine of information but mostly in the form of writing rather than by a lot of symbols and a comprehensive key. There is a small key ‘Explanation’ which distinguishes rectories from vicarages by a letter over a stylised church symbol, which identifies the site of ‘Antient Religious Houses’, which identifies Parliamentary boroughs returning M.P.s (York 2, Hull 2, Beverley 1) and which identifies ‘post stages’, this last point linking to the early days of turnpikes and the stopping points of stage coaches. Other than this information is given by wording on the map in the correct locations. To do this various types of lettering were used e.g. block capitals with seriphs for wapontake names (s.p.b.s), lower case block letters for place names and lower case italic lettering for the location of smaller places. Just as should be today, the town of Kingston upon Hull was given its proper name ‘KINGSTON Supra. Hull’, albeit with a variety of lettering!
In the section of ‘The German Ocean’ shown and in the ‘Part of the West Riding’ shown paragraphs give information about certain places. Howden, for example, is described as ‘situated near the River Derwent which glides on with a large stream near this town, besides its market on Sat. it has a fair on Sep. 14th for 9 days where the Londoners furnish the Country Trades with all sorts of Goods by wholesale. This place has suffered greatly by Inundations’. The abbreviations ‘Th & Sat.’ above Hull on the map presumably give the days of Hull’s weekly markets.
Bowen was keen on historical references for example, ‘Flixton is noted for an Hospital built here in the Time of Athelstan’, ‘Abus Estuarium’ (Roman term for the Humber Estuarium) and ‘Gabran Tovicorum alias Sinus Salutaris’ near the site of ‘Bridlington Key’ (Quay).