We all know that vampires don’t exist and that there are no malevolent beings of Carpathian origin walking the streets of London, Nottingham or Whitby. Don't we. One of the really powerful aspects of Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel ‘Dracula’ is how it creates the impression of authenticity, partially through how it is told (through diaries and news reports), partially through the novel’s setting in authentically real places.

This is one of the maps that Jonathan Harker might have looked at prior to his fateful carriage ride into to the Carpathian Mountains. Strassen-Karte des Grossfürstenthums Siebenbürgen. Vienna, 1856. Maps 28238.(3.)

The second year of the British Library's ‘Off the Map’ competition is now well underway. In conjunction with gaming festival Gamecity and publisher Crytek, the student competition to create virtual gaming environments out of British Library collection items ties in with the major exhibition 'Terror and Wonder: the Gothic Imagination' which will open in October 2014.

One of the three ‘places’ we selected for student teams to work their magic on was the sleepy town of Whitby. I say sleepy, but of course this is where Dracula, in the form of a giant beast-dog thing washed ashore in England, thereafter making quite a nuisance of himself.

Despite its sleepiness, Whitby is a notable presence in maps and views. Early sea charts show the town quite prominently, and from late 18th and early 19th century prints, like this one by Francis Jukes, provide a powerful and romantic impression of the landscape which ties in with an increase in tourism to such places at that time. The other visual assets we have provided can be viewed here.

A view of Whitby on the Yorkshire Coast, by Francis Jukes. London, 1804. Aquatint. Maps K.Top 44.53-g.

An early view of one of the Off the Map teams’ work shows that they have taken this powerful dramatic vision of Whitby, and made it even more powerful, dramatic, and darker. I’m so scared I can’t even watch the end of it. Let me know what happens.

  

Welcome back to the Virtual Mappa Project blog, now on our third excursion. Last time, we looked at DM annotation tools embedded within the project's website, which enable us to add text transcriptions and translations to the current corpus of mappaemundi. In future it will allow users to make their own notes on these medieval maps, tied directly to the images. Now we will try to explain how a couple of "linking" functions can create complex connections and pathways between texts and images within the project workspace, and out into the wider Web.

So last week's "lesson" in making markers and text annotations is obviously a form of linking itself, but that's just a starting point for a whole world of linked data. From that first image-to-text connection we can begin to branch out, using the text annotations as a jumping-off point. Any piece of text within an annotation can be highlighted with the "Tag" tool, and connected to any other image marker or piece of text. As with the original annotations, pop-up boxes and integrated image thumbnails show where the connections lead. 

A bustling DM workspace with a variety of map images and text documents. Reproduced by permission of the British Library; The Mappa Mundi Trust and the Dean and Chapter of Hereford Cathedral; and The Master and Fellows of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. 

As well as the mappaemundi annotations we have mentioned, we have text documents stored alongside the map images. Currently these include relevant parts of Isidore's Etymologies and Orosius's Seven Histories Against the Pagans - in Latin and Old English -  and we plan to add others. Because much of the content on these mappaemundi is derived from these sorts of classical texts - often without citation - it is incredibly useful to be able to link instances from the map images to their specific sources. Mappaemundi, in modern terms, could be considered as "map mashups", plugging an encyclopedic variety of classical and medieval knowledge into a map framework, to create a new and unique image of the world. They're great to view as a finished product, but the identification of the parts which make up the whole can shed light on the creation process, the worldview of the creator and even the audience he was aiming at. But I definitely don't need to point this out to any medievalists reading!

 

Spot the difference, with the Hereford (L) and Sawley (R) mappaemundi, two sections just waiting for connections to be made. Reproduced by permission of the Mappa Mundi Trust and the Dean and Chapter of Hereford Cathedral; the Sawley map is reproduced by permission of the Master and Fellows of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. This manuscript - MS66, p.2 - the Higden map of MS21, f.9 r (top and below) and many others are available to view online, thanks to the Parker Library on the Web.

Enough about text already. There are some amongst us who don't care for letters, and there is plenty of purely pictorial information on these mappaemundi to keep everyone looking for a long time. The connections described above can also be made directly between image markers, either within the same image or between different map canvases. There are plenty of elements which crop up on a number of the maps in a visually distinct and recognisable form, such as the almost invariably red-coloured, two-pronged Red Sea and Persian Gulf (below), and it is possible to jump directly between the instances on the images without troubling any text.

The Red Sea depicted on (clockwise from top left) the Psalter, Basic Higden, Royal Higden, Sawley, Hereford and Cotton mappaemundi. 

 This function is also useful for associated elements spread widely across one image, such as the tragicomically confused continent labels on the Hereford mappamundi, or instances like the word 'Paludes' written split across three separate bodies of connected water (below).

The Hereford map's 'Paludes' (modern-day Sea of Azov) in three pieces, above the sadly now extinct Ukrainian Ostrich (left). Image markers on the same canvas can be linked directly  to one another, temporarily glowing red when a connection is made (right). Reproduced by permission of The Mappa Mundi Trust and the Dean and Chapter of Hereford Cathedral. 

 Everything described so far in terms of data connections takes place within the framework of the Virtual Mappa Project website, but another simple function can create a near-infinite scope of the linked data. Basically, you can quickly and easily place hyperlinks to external websites within the text annotations. Obviously, a hyperlink can connect to just about anything online: articles, images, gazetteers - I don't need to list the contents of the Web! The Virtual Mappa Project framework still contains the notes, connections and structure you need to engage dynamically with the available mappaemundi in an organised (if rather unique) fashion, but the simple inclusion of a hyperlink tool opens up the annotation content to a whole world of extra information.

 A selection of texts, images and links in the DM workspace: Babylon, between the Tigris and Euphrates. Reproduced by permission of the British Library, the Hereford Mappa Mundi Trust and the Dean and Chapter of Hereford Cathedral, and not forgetting the Master and Fellows of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.

 It is a little tricky to describe and explain the processes and outputs of this type of linked data in a clear, linear fashion, as the process and end result of this form of data creation is anything but linear. But hopefully we have given a sense of the scope and structure potentially provided by the Virtual Mappa Project in allowing us to analyse and engage with these fantastic mappaemundi in a flexible, personal and wide-ranging fashion. I personally haven't really begun to get stuck in to the processes of linked data creation for these documents, but I am definitely looking forward to getting lost in the links between the medieval maps, classical texts and all the other documents and sources that helped to create them, and will help us to better understand them.

 

-  Cat Crossley

The previous Virtual Mappa blog post introduced you to some of the project's mappaemundi, and laid out some basic concepts that make medieval maps different from modern ones. This time, it's all about the DM annotation tools we've been using to markup the mappaemundi and add in the information we need to better understand them. 

 DM workspace, showing (L-R) the Royal Higden, Cotton and Psalter maps (London, British Library: Royal MS 14.C.IX,  ff.1v-2;  Cotton MS Tiberius B.V, f.56v; Add. MS 28681, f.9)

 

Currently, most people can only really appreciate these mappaemundi as images alone. The main barrier to understanding a medieval map is the Latin text it is written in. Most of the individual icons on the map have little labels or long paragraphs attached, written in a language many of us can't read. Without having the textual information accessible, you are essentially just looking at images - worthwhile in itself, but limiting.

   
 A small selection of creatures from the Hereford Mappamundi which need nearly no words: the Marsok, Phoenix (yes, really) and Sciapod. Reproduced by permission of The Hereford Mappa Mundi Trust and the Dean and Chapter of Hereford Cathedral 

 

For a traditional text like a book or letter, a facing page translation works just fine. With mappaemundi the text is embedded within the image, so getting a translation that's easily accessible without destroying the integrity of the image itself takes a bit of thought. In paper format it is almost impossible. But with the Virtual Mappa project we have some simple digital tools that can do the job well, and here, with some examples from the Hereford Mappa Mundi, we will explain how to use them.

  

Some nearly illegible text with Crete, Cyprus, and one other island from the Royal Higden mappamundi,  Royal MS 14.C.IX ff.1v-2 (London, British Library). Any ideas? 

 

Firstly, we want to make a marker to highlight an area of the map we are interested in, be it an image, piece of text, or both. There are various shape options available for making these markers, but I usually use the basic line-draw tool. With it you can simply underline a word, or create a complex shape marker for, say, a Lynx and its description (below).

 

Detail of the Lynx from the Hereford Mappa Mundi, marked up within the DM workspace. Reproduced by permission of The Hereford Mappa Mundi Trust and the Dean and Chapter of Hereford Cathedral.

Now you have a marker tied to the map image, to which we can begin to attach useful information. Rolling your cursor over the marker makes a pop-up box appear, giving the option to create an attached text annotation. You can add in whatever notes you want to make about the marked-up area. Basic text formatting options are available in the annotation window, and the markers' visibility can easily be turned on or off, for when you want to see the image unsullied. 

 

 Detail of Lynx and its transcription and translation. Reproduced by permission of The Hereford Mappa Mundi Trust and the Dean and Chapter of Hereford Cathedral.

 

Our annotations follow a basic template, giving a transcription of the Latin text and an English translation of the Latin. So for each piece of text on these maps, you will be able to rollover the marker, click on the pop-up box and read the translation in another window. Just adding this basic bit of information should make these maps much more accessible to everyone. 

 

Details of a marked-up Salamander (left) and Mandrake (right) from the Nile Delta region of the Hereford map. Reproduced by permission of The Hereford Mappa Mundi Trust and the Dean and Chapter of Hereford Cathedral.

The aim of this project isn't just to have our map annotations available to view, though the in situ transcription and translation will certainly aid everyone's understanding. The point is that these tools are embedded in the software interface, so at some point in the future anybody will be able to make their own markers and annotations. Maybe you're coming at the documents from a different research background, interested in elements we haven't covered; maybe you'll spot something we didn't even see; or maybe you just think the Latin translation needs improving!

Generally, everybody organises their ideas and notes differently, and the Virtual Mappa Project is open and flexible enough to allow all users to look at the available mappaemundi and attach their notes directly to the digital images. It is an innovative way to engage with these complex, overtly visual documents, and I look forward to seeing how people make use of the annotation tools we are providing for this project.

  

 Detail of Scandinavia (left) and a close-up on the famous Norwegian Simea (right). Reproduced by permission of The Hereford Mappa Mundi Trust and the Dean and Chapter of Hereford Cathedral.

 

Coming up next week will be some more about these annotation tools, but we'll be talking about linked data, and how just a couple of  different "link" functions within the Virtual Mappa interface can help create incredibly complex connections, associations and pathways through your mappaemundi annotations, and out into the wider web.

 

 Cat Crossley

To coincide with the appearance of her excellent new book 'The Art and History of Globes', and also the recent appearance of the British Library's largest globe in our newly transformed Treasures gallery, the globe conservator and historian Sylvia Sumira has kindly contributed this guest blog post. Sylvia writes:

When most people think of a globe, they think of a terrestrial globe, but in fact celestial globes pre-dated terrestrial globes by many years and were first made in ancient Greece. Looking up to the skies, the stars seemed to form a sphere around the earth. Constellations were devised as a kind of aide-memoire to remembering and pin-pointing the positions of the stars.

Vincenzo Coronelli, Orbis coelestis typus, opus a V. Coronelli ... Anno R.S. 1693 Paris, 1693. British Library Maps G.55.

The splendid celestial globe now on display in the Treasures Gallery is the work of   Vincenzo Coronelli (1650-1718), a Franciscan monk. He is renowned as one of the greatest globe-makers of all time. (In fact, there is a society devoted to the study of globes named after him - The Coronelli Society). After constructing a spectacular pair of enormous manuscript globes for Louis XIV in the 1680s which still exist and can be seen in the Bibliotheque nationale in Paris, he set up a globe and map-making factory at his convent in Venice. There he printed and published a range of globes varying in size from tiny, 5 cm/2 inches, to large, 108cm/42.5 inches. He also established an outpost of skilled engravers in Paris so he could keep the production going. This globe is a product of the Paris workshop. The large globes were in fact the largest printed globes to have been made at the time and I can’t think of any larger printed globes that have been made since.

 

Coronelli's globe in the British Library Treasures gallery

Though the globe was made in 1693, the positions of the constellations in relation to the equinoxes are given for the year, or epoch, 1700. The figures of the constellations on the globe are beautifully engraved and are named in four languages: Italian, French, Latin and Greek. This is the only example of a large Coronelli celestial globe in the British Isles and it has only just been put on display after many years in storage. Moving it from its usual place of rest was not without difficulty. The globe in its stand does not fit through most of the doors in the British Library. The globe sphere is heavy and awkward to handle and it required a team of six strong men to lift it out of its stand, so that the stand could be turned sideways to fit through the doors before being reunited with the globe in the gallery. It will be on display for many months to come, but for conservation reasons, not permanently, so this is a rare and welcome opportunity to study it close-up.

The Coronelli globe is featured in my book ‘The Art and History of Globes’ which has just been published by the British Library. In the book there is more about Coronelli and his globe works, and many other globes in the British Library’s fine collection.

Sylvia Sumira

A few weeks ago we were delighted to meet the author and artist Rus Madon who has used maps from the British Library's map collection to create his own modern map of historical geography. Despite containing an only moderately dreadful pun on the name of Ely, the map sets the scene of Rus's historical novel, and also gives us a really good picture of how the Fens looked in the 11th century. How relevant those old maps can be. Rus writes: 

 

I am writing a Young Adult story about a girl who lives in modern-day Ely, a city in the fens a few miles north of Cambridge. She travels back in time to the year 1071 when Ely was defended against the Normans by Hereward the Wake. The more I wrote about 11th century Ely, the more I wondered what it actually looked like. So to help answer the question, I set about drawing a map of medieval Ely.

Rus Madon, 'The Isle of Eels', London, 2013. Ink and pencil on paper. Maps X.8006

The fens were drained by the Dutch in the 17th century, and this reclaimed landscape is now fertile farmland. I used the resources of the British Library to look for the oldest maps of the area prior to this engineering feat. All maps of the area are thought to derive from a survey of the area carried out by William Hayward at the beginning of the 17th century. This map was destroyed in a fire, but it is believed that Sir Robert Cotton, a keen collector of fenland maps, had a copy made.

After William Hayward, A map of the Fens, circa 1620. Ink on parchment. Cotton MS Augustus I.i.78

It is an extraordinary document. Looking at the hand drawn map, you can see the lost Isle of Eels emerging from the fens; I was literally looking back in time.

Detail of Cotton MS Augustus I.i.78

I supplemented this information with a review of existing Ordnance Survey maps, using the 5 metre contour line to sketch out land that would have been above the ancient water table. I then did what every good cartographer needs to do: Fieldwork.

During the summer of 2013 I drove the back roads and lanes that criss-cross the island, making adjustments to my map, extending the sweep of a hill, noting natural hollows in the ground, and removing the causeways and embankments that had been added much later. With the island outline now mapped came a greater challenge; how to determine the courses of the old waterways. Two huge artificial gouges to the northwest of Ely look like a spaceship has crashed and furrowed a path towards the sea. These are in fact two “rivers” commissioned by the 4th Earl of Bedford in 1630 which helped in the process of draining the fens. This, along with other workings over the centuries carried out in the fens, resulted in the modern day river system of the Great Ouse flowing west to east and joining up with the Granta (now the Cam) to flow north to the right of Ely. If I wanted to know where the rivers used to flow, I was going to have to dig deeper. Again, the British Library opened her vaults and I came across a pivotal paper published by Major Gordon Fowler in 1934.

This paper outlined the possible ancient watercourses of the area. Along with several other authors and notably the excellent Henry Darby, I pieced together how the rivers would have flowed around the island in Saxon times. The Granta has not changed much since those times, but it came to light that the West River flowed east to west and joined the Great Ouse to head north to the left of Ely! This was a very different system to that seen today. Once a few of the Roman lodes had been added back in (such as Reach Lode and the famous Cardyke), the geography of the map was complete. The final step was to add the main settlements that would have existed in 1071. For this I used a mixture of references from the Domesday Book and the Liber Eliensis, the so-called Book of Ely, written in the 12th century by monks at Ely Abbey.It took 200 hours to complete the map (a copy of which I donated to the British Library), but it was worth it. Now I can travel back in time to 1071 and see the Isle of Eels through the eyes of my heroine.

References Astbury, A.K. The Black Fens. (1958). Shelfmark (10362.i.10) Darby, H.C. The Medieval Fenland. (1940). Shelfmark (8219.1.1/8) Dring, W. E. The Fenland Story. (1967). Shelfmark (X.709/24064) Fowler, G. The extinct waterways of the fens. (1934) The Geographical Journal, 83, (1), pp30-36 Maps C.7.c.3(45) (1632) MS Facsimile 315 Cotton MS. Augustus I.i.78. (1603) Ordnance Survey Explorer Series; 225, 226, 227, 228. Cassini Historical Maps (Old Series) 1805 to 1836; 154, 143, 142. Rex, P. Hereward, The Last Englishman. Tempus (2007) ISBN 978-0-7524-4462-8 Rex, P. Hereward, Outlaw and Hero. The Ely Society (No Date) ISBN 0-903616-22-X Bevis, T. Flooded Fens. Bevis (2001) ISBN0-901680-70-2 Liber Eliensis. Translated by Janet Fairweather. Boydell. (2005) ISBN 978-1-84383-015-3 The Domesday Book. The Domesday Book Online (www.domesdaybook.co.uk

R J Madon

A new British Library collaboration called the Virtual Mappa project is well under way, using digital images of a selection of medieval world maps - mappaemundi - and some excellent new annotation software (more on that at a later date). High-resolution images of these maps will be available online for public use, with transcribed and translated text, notes, links to outside resources and other tools for understanding these marvellous mappaemundi. I'm the intern charged with annotating the maps and organising all this extra data. I've been up to my ears in Latin text, incredible images and software glitches for a few months now, so it is about time we started spreading the news about the upcoming Virtual Mappa project.

Psalter Map, (London, British Library, Add. MS 28681, f.9)

At first glance, you may not be able to recognise a medieval mappamundi as depicting the same earth we see in maps today, so some basics need addressing. Generally speaking, medieval world maps only show the continents of Europe, Asia and Africa, seen somewhat as synonymous with the Roman Empire. Australasia, the Americas and the polar regions don't tend to feature, as they were either unknown or considered to be uninhabited, or populated by 'savages', and therefore of little interest to the 'civilised' Christian populace creating and viewing these documents. And contrary to popular opinion, these maps don't depict a flat earth - it had already been known for centuries that the earth was a globe, and these maps simply attempt to model this spherical shape on the flat surface of a page, similar to the way a modern world map bends and stretches the continents to fit an image of the earth's surface into a neat rectangle. 

The Anglo-Saxon World Map, aka the Cotton Map. (London, British Library, Cotton MS Tiberius B.V, f.56v)

It must also be noted that even though we call these documents 'maps', they contain a greater range of information than what we are used to with modern maps. Medieval mappaemundi were often more like encyclopedias in geographic form, containing a significant amount of history - especially events from the Bible - and even zoological and ethnographic information. Sometimes the whole of known history from Creation to the End of the World is depicted; monstrous races and mythical creatures abound on the more extravagant maps; and complex Christian connections and levels of meaning which we may never get close to decrypting flow through the map images and text.

Peterborough Diagrammatic Map (London, British Library, Harley MS 3667, f.8v)

The nine medieval maps we have been working with so far come from a timeframe covering several centuries, but have certain common characteristics: firstly, they're all world maps depicting a similar area of the globe (as discussed above). Secondly, they are orientated with East at the top, where modern maps have North at the top. This was standard practice for centuries, and when you learn that 'Oriens' means 'East' in Latin, it is easy to see where we get the English word 'orientation'. Finally, each of these maps was made in Britain, so unsurprisingly each one depicts the British Isles and Ireland, although the varying styles means Britain can look very different in each image.

 

Starkly different details of the British Isles and Ireland from the Cotton (left) and Peterborough (right) maps. (London, British Library, Cotton MS Tiberius B.V, f.56v ; Harley MS 3667, f.8v)

There are some similarities shared between these medieval maps, beyond the basics we've mentioned. Some of the maps clearly go together, for example the Peterborough (above) and Thorney (St John's Oxford MS 17, f. 6r) diagrammatic maps are effectively copies of each other. The two 'Higden Maps' (CCCC MS 21, f.9r and Royal MS 14 C IX, ff.1v-2, below) have the same colour scheme of turquoise and red, and probably both illustrated copies of Ranulf Higden's Polychronicon. Also, Sawley (CCCC MS 66, p.2) and the Hereford Mappa Mundi have some very similar elements which suggest they were both copied from a common ancestor. But there are far more differences that stand out...

The Royal Higden map - England is shown in red in the bottom left corner, with Wales and Scotland depicted as nearby islands. See the Medieval Manuscripts blog entry here for further images and information. (London, British Library, Royal MS 14 C IX, ff.1v-2)

The size of these maps varies enormously, for example the Psalter map is a miniscule 10cm square whereas the Hereford map stands at over 5 feet high. From this we know that one was a personal image for private viewing, and the other designed to be displayed and seen by a large audience. Style differs drastically, from the seemingly accurate 'wiggly' coastlines of the Anglo-Saxon map to the stark diagrammatic outlines of Peterborough. Even between similar sized maps, content can differ - the simpler Higden map shows placenames only, whereas Sawley fits in lots of biblical and ethnographic information in between its cities, rivers and mountains.

Detail of Monstrous Races from the Psalter Map (London, British Library, Add. MS 28681, f.9)

One of many lions apparently lost in Eastern Russia... (London, British Library, Cotton MS Tiberius B.V, f.56v)

The selected mappaemundi, then, vary greatly in size, style, content and purpose, can contain levels of meaning wholly lost on modern readers, and are written in the dead language of Latin. Good job that the Virtual Mappa Project will help us to make sense of them all! There really is much more to say about these magnificent medieval maps, so check back here for further images, updates and information.

-  Cat Crossley

 

Maps contained within the pages of 17th-, 18th-, and 19th-century books are still being unearthed. Of the one million images that the Library extracted from scanned volumes and explosed on Flickr Commons, over 2,100 have already been tagged as maps by the public!

As these map images are in the public domain and so open for reuse, we've seen new interpretations, further exposure, and interesting geospatial applications. For instance, John Leighton's 1895 diagrammatic map of London Indexed in Two-Mile Hexagons has been brought up to date and into space in this dynamic visualisation created for International Open Data Day tomorrow in Osaka City, Japan. Though I've been warned that this is a work-in-progress, it is impressive already; the newly geo-aware index is interactively linked to its 18 component hexagonal maps, with the current location in OpenStreetMap appearing alongside. Ollie described the purpose of Leighton's mapping scheme in his Mapping London blog post in December. The results of making these maps available just keep getting better.

 

Work-in-progress at http://museum-media.jp/london/

Leighton's index map, the 18 component maps, and other images from the book

Here at the Library we're anticipating opening up the 2,100+ maps for public georeferencing. Once all of the one million images get tagged with keywords in Flickr, those identified as maps will be consolidated and released via BL Georeferencer. Please lend a hand by finding and tagging any maps among the remaining images! 

The first printed catalogue of King George III’s Topographical Collection was published in 1829. It organised the 50,000 or so items geographically and alphabetically. At the same time, or slightly earlier, the collection was given shelfmarks beginning with ‘Maps K.Top.’ followed by a sequence of letters and numbers. It appears that when the King’s agents and librarians were buying for him they purchased bulk lots and volumes of views which they dis-bound and deconstructed and then reconstructed according to geographical region. Hence, drawings and prints by the same hand or from the same publication are spread across the entire collection.

Many of the works bear pencil or pen and ink inscriptions identifying the locations which, more often than not, were added by a later hand, not that of the artist, printmaker or cartographer. In some cases these identifying inscriptions appear to be in the hand of earlier owners, while a majority of others appear to be done by those looking after or ordering the collection, probably in the 1820s.

The only other time at which part of the collection was catalogued was in 1844 when the drawings and manuscript maps catalogue was published. Largely unchanged from the 1829 catalogue entries, they did however elaborate slightly on the titles of the works and provide dimensions. At some point the shelfmarks of large maps and rolls changed and in the 1940s the loose maps and drawings were bound in 235 guard volumes according to geographical region. Thereafter the catalogue was not rewritten or revised until 2013 when the current digitisation and cataloguing project began.

The cataloguing and ordering of this vast collection in the 1820s was bound to contain a few errors. It is the misidentification of locations, cataloguing errors and attribution oversights which this series of blogs will focus on. Errors in identification and attribution are not just interesting because they challenge the modern cataloguer to identify the correct subject or artist: they are interesting because they go some way to demonstrating how the works were ordered, labeled and catalogued in the 1820s.

Façade formerly identified as Trinity Hospital, Guildford, pen and brown ink, around 1720-1770. British Library Maps K.Top.40.14.m.1. 

One such item which has evaded propser identification is Maps K.Top.40.14.m.1. which was incorrectly catalogued as Trinity Hospital, Guildford [Illustration 1]. The drawing bears the inscription ‘Trinity Hospl founded by A.Bn Abbott at Guildford, Surrey' in pencil on the verso and was catalogued in 1829 as’ A drawn View of Trinity Hospital at Guildford’ and as ‘An outline view of Trinity Hospital at  Guildford’; drawn about 1720’ in 1844 [Illustrations 2 and 3]. The drawing is in brown ink on laid paper. There are no other similar drawings in the collection which might help to identify the hand or provenance.

Catalogue entry for Maps K.Top.40.14.m.1. in Catalogue of Maps, Prints, Drawings etc forming the geographical and topographical collection attached to the library of his late majesty King George the Third (London: 1829) 

Catalogue entry for Maps K.Top.40.14.m.1. in Catalogue of the manuscript maps charts & plans and of the topographical drawings in the British Museum (London: 1844) 

Trinity Hospital (sometimes called the Abbot’s Hospital) in Guildford as it appears today is quite different to the structure depicted in the drawing. For excellent photographs of the building see the British Listed Buildings Website: http://www.britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/en-288945-hospital-of-the-blessed-holy-trinity-sur/photos

Among the many differences the most noticeable are: the façade to the left of the gatehouse is three storeys in the drawing whereas the Guildford Hospital is two; the gatehouse itself is two windows wide in the drawing but only one in Guildford; the top of the gatehouse is crenellated in the drawing whereas it is not at Guildford. Despite recognising that changes to buildings occur, this degree of difference strongly suggests that the building in the drawing is not Trinity Hospital. The drawing depicts a Tudor gateway which shares similarities with examples at St James’s Palace, London and St John’s, Queens’ and King’s Colleges in Cambridge. However, despite extensive research, it has not been possible to identify the building depicted.

Although the incorrect identification was in place by 1829 it could have occurred at any time before this date and in this instance we cannot entirely blame the cataloguers. The handwriting which misidentifies the building is not typical of the inscriptions placed by George III’s librarians or British Museum staff. However, while the incorrect identification may have been an earlier error, it was not questioned when the 1829 and 1844 catalogue entries were written. This is especially surprising as there is an etching of the façade of Trinity Hospital at the next shelfmark Maps K.Top.40.14.m.2. [Illustration 4].

Trinity Hospital in Guildford, Surrey, etching, around 1780. British Library Maps K.Top.40.14.m.2. 

A quick comparison of the two highlights the striking difference between the two gateways and facades depicted:

The page from the guard volume showing Maps K.Top.40.14.m.1. and Maps K.Top.40.14.m.2. together 

This suggests that the 1829 cataloguers merely transcribed what they saw rather than questioning identification or attribution which in turn led to incorrect catalogue entries in some instances. One of the benefits of cataloguing and digitising the King’s Topographical Collection is the opportunity to re-evaluate the 19th-century cataloguing and make these unknown views, plans and drawings more visible in the hope that correct attributions and identifications can be attached to them.

The next blog in this series will look at the watercolour artist Charles John Mayle Whichelo and the recent discovery of a number of his drawings in the King’s Topographical Collection.

Alexandra Ault