Old Map of London in 1746 by John Rocque, Sheet C2 - Somerset House, Covent Garden, Charing Cross, Westminster, Lambeth

This sheet forms part of the celebrated twenty-four sheet survey of London produced by surveyor John Rocque and engraved by John Pine, published in 1746 and long regarded as the most detailed map of the city attempted up to that point. Rocque spent years surveying London street by street to achieve a level of accuracy no earlier map had matched, covering everything from the fields on the city's outer edges to its most densely built central districts. This plate, sheet C2 of the survey, covers the stretch of London running from the Strand and Covent Garden down to the river and across into Lambeth, giving a richly detailed record of one of the capital's most historically significant districts as it stood in the mid-18th century.

Somerset House appears on the map in its earlier form, decades before the grand Georgian building familiar today replaced it later in the century. Covent Garden is shown as an established market square, already known as London's principal fruit and vegetable market since the piazza's development the century before, and Seven Dials sits nearby, its distinctive junction of streets radiating out from a central column already a well-known London landmark. Charing Cross marks one of the map's central points, a crossroads long used as the notional centre of London, while Westminster appears with its abbey and the seat of Parliament clearly marked. Across the river, Lambeth is shown still largely as marshland and scattered development, well before the docks, factories and dense housing that would fill the south bank in the following century.

This sheet makes a fitting gift for anyone with a connection to Covent Garden, Westminster or the south bank around Lambeth, whether through work, study or family history in the area. It pairs naturally with our other Rocque and Pine sheets covering Holborn, Bloomsbury and Mayfair, and suits a collector building out a fuller room-by-room record of Georgian London. Every print is supplied unframed and available across our full range of sizes, from a compact study print to a larger piece for an office or sitting room.