Hertfordshire Maps

80x60 cm

THE Actual Survey of the COUNTY of HERTFORD;
Containing the Miles, Furlong's, and Poles, between Place and Place, on all the Roads in the SURVEY, exactly Measured and set forth in a Printed account, hereunto annexed. A work never done to any COUNTY before. Also and Alphabetical Table of the Nobility and Gentry, with a ready method for the finding their Particular Seats, or Places of Residence in the Said COUNTY. 
By John Oliver. Cum Privilegio 1695.
This map is humbly dedicated and Performed By John Oliver.

John Oliver (1616?-1701), Builder, Architect, glass-painter, mapmaker, surveyor, printseller, publisher, and engraver.  Oliver was a common councilman for Queenhithe Ward 1667-1689, was appointed official surveyor to the City of London in 1668, and married his second wife Susanna Speed, grand-daughter of John Speed in 1670. He was master of the Glaziers company 1685-6 and became Master Mason to the King in 1686.
Oliver produced this two sheet map of Hertfordshire in 1695, based on the survey of the county he carried out in partnership with John Seller and Richard Palmer for the production of a proposed atlas to be entitled Atlas Anglicanus which was to be based on actual surveys of each county. Only six counties were completed (Hertfordshire, Middlesex, Surrey, Kent, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire) and the partnership was dissolved by 1693.
At twice the size of the 1675 production, Oliver was able to include more information from his survey.
The only known copy to include the Alphabetical table referred to in the title is held in The Herfordshire Record Office. This H.R.O. copy is also the only known copy to include an inscription in the vacant cartouche intended for the manuscript addition of individual subscribers.
Issued only as a loose sheet map sold separately, and not re-issued, the map is very rare. On the scarcity of the map, Donald Hodson states in his description in Four County Maps of Hertfordshire 1985, ..."only a handful of impressions of the map have been discovered."
Some professional restoration to folds verso and small loss at bottom left corner (not affecting the printed area). A very good example of a very rare map.
References:
Donald Hodson. Printed Maps of Hertfordshire. ref. 20. Dawson. 1974
Donald Hodson. Four County Maps of Hertfordshire. Hertfordshire Publications. 1985.
Elizabeth Rodger. Large Scale Maps of the British Isles ref. 183. Bodleian Library 1972.