County Maps

The idea of making a survey of the kingdom and its parts in a consistent format developed in the mid Sixteenth Century. Although the first English map of Britain by Matthew Paris had appeared in about 1250, it was not until the mid Fifteenth Century that the principles of mapping were fully understood.

The craft of cartography was boosted by the Italian invention of printing maps from copper plates in 1473, while advances in scientific learning helped the Dutch and Flemish to become the masters of map making by the late 1500s.

All of the maps in the MAPSEEKER collection were originally painstakingly reproduced working directly from antique originals and hand painted to bring out the finest colour detail. We have now glazed these art works onto our stunning hand crafted tiles.