) from the
Atlas of the Counties of England and Wales Map making became increasingly common in the reign of
Elizabeth I, made possible by advances in surveying technology and printing from engraved copper plates. Accurate mapping of the whole country became increasingly important; the
Gough Map of the early fourteenth century had (schematic) roads but no administrative divisions.
Lord Burghley was instrumental in ensuring that a court official,
Thomas Seckford of
Woodbridge, Suffolk, financed the commission. In 1574 Saxton began the survey of England. In consideration of the expenses involved, Queen Elizabeth granted him a lease on lands at Grigstone Manor in Suffolk. The Welsh survey began in 1577. Surveying the country was a significant undertaking but the first plates were engraved by 1574 and in 1578 the survey was complete. As the task was finished in a short time-span it is possible that Saxton used some of John Rudd's earlier work. All the maps are dated except for Northumberland. Five counties, Cornwall, Essex, Hertfordshire, The Suffolk and Norfolk maps show the division into
hundreds. The atlas was a commercial success, prompting other cartographers including
John Speed, John Norton, and
Michael Drayton to attempt similar enterprises, adding to and adapting Saxton's work. The maps drawn by Saxton were engraved by
Augustine Ryther,
Remigius Hogenberg, William Hole, William Kip, Leonard Terwoort of Antwerp, Nicholas Reynold of London,
Cornelius Hogius, and Francis Scatter. The engravers were of Dutch or Flemish origin.
John Dee, warden of the
Manchester's collegiate church, employed Saxton to survey Manchester's parish boundaries in 1596 but no copy has survived.
Chetham's Library in Manchester has a copy of the atlas, as does the
Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. The maps were republished during the
English Civil War "in twenty sturdy sheets to be folded as a pocket-map, 'Useful for all Commanders for the Quartering of Soldiers'" (thus becoming known as "the
Quartermaster's map"). ==References==