Author name: Richard Clarke

Incidentally Bowen’s 18th century county map shows both keels and slopes amongst the single-masted vessels sailing the Estuary – but I struggle to remember which is which. The cluster of masts in the centre of the picture shows the ‘old harbour’, the western bank of the lower River Hull near its mouth, where the staithes, […]

FIRST AND FOREMOST AN APOLOGY – THERE HAS BEEN A TOO LONG A GAP IN PRODUCTION. THIS IS BECAUSE I HAD A WEEK’S HOLIDAY AND THE NEXT DAY MOVED HOME FROM A HOUSE TO A FLAT AND AM ONLY NOW GETTING ON TOP OF EVERYTHING. SINCERE APOLOGIES. Bowen’s county map of the mid 18th century,

Emanuel Bowen’s county map of East Yorkshire is well known for a number of reasons; it is detailed (for a county map) and is very elaborate – incorporating the image shown above and a fine panorama of Hull’s townscape as viewed from the Humber Estuary. I am not sure when this map was first published but Bowen

The third map being considered (see above) was compiled by Wenceslaus Hollar (well known in this area for his engraving showing a bird’s-eye view of Hull, 1640), probably in the 1640s and, allegedly, produced on the orders of Oliver Cromwell during the English Civil Wars. It is entitled ‘The Bishop=ricke of Durram and Cumberland, Westmoreland, Yorke=shire,

As may be seen from the extract shown above Robert Morden’s county map as reproduced in Gibson’s edition of Camden’s Britannia, 1695 is very similar, if not identical in some respects, to the county map of 1645 already studied (s.p.b.s). For example, settlements are located by a stylised church symbol with the name nearby and Morden’s depiction

One interesting feature of our mid 17th century county map (s.p.b.s) is that it records and gives the boundaries of the ‘wapontakes’ of the Eat Riding. The six so defined are; Dickering W. (north-east section of the Wolds), Holderness W., Buckrose W. (north-central section of the Wolds), Harthill W. (southern Wolds and the River Hull Valley,