21 April 2011Last updated at 06:35

'Great Britaine' map goes digital

The first comprehensive atlas of Great Britain was published 400 years ago and to celebrate the event it has been digitised by Cambridge University Library. It owns one of only five proof copies left in the world. John Speed's Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine was published in 1611/12.

It was the first time a complete set of plans of English and Welsh counties and towns was available in print. Every one of the surviving proof sets is different from the others. Each English and Welsh county receives its own page, and there are maps of Scotland and the Irish provinces.

John Speed relied upon William Camden's Britannia, an historical survey of Britain and Ireland, to include a description of each county with the published edition of the atlas. These are not included in the proofs. The maps are richly illustrated with sea monsters and people.

Close-up of Speed's map of Cambridgeshire

The map of Cambridgeshire includes robed academics. One of them is holding the map's scale bar. John Speed said of the county: "The Fenns... infect the air far in to the rest.. the Fenny surcharged with waters: the South is Champion and yieldeth Corn in abundance, with Meadow-pastures upon both sides of the River Came."

The Theatre's first print run of 500 copies sold out, and many editions followed. Its influence was so great that it was used by armies on both sides of the Civil War in the 1640s. While roads were not included in the maps, bridges were and they appear to suggest where routes cross rivers.

John Speed was born in Cheshire in the early 1550s. He was an historian as well as a cartographer. His county maps were the first consistent attempt to show territorial divisions but it was his town plans that were a major innovation. Together they form the first printed collection of town plans for the British Isles.

Cambridge University Library bought this proof set in 1968. It is now considered priceless. Anne Taylor, head of the map department, said: "Although the library holds several copies of the published atlas, including a first edition, it is the hand-coloured set of proofs that is one of its greatest treasures."

Now the 400-year-old proofs have been scanned onto the internet. The library is also selling copies of each of more than 60 images. To see all the maps and to find out more about John Speed's contribution to map-making, visit the library's website.

Cambridgeshire

'Great Britaine' map goes digital

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