Old Map of Aberdeen, Inverness, Moray & Angus in 1690 by Valk & Schenk - Dundee, Perth, Fraserburgh, Loch Ness

Stretching from the Great Glen to the North Sea coast, this 1690 map takes in a wide cross-section of north-east Scotland, published by the Amsterdam partnership of Gerard Valk and Petrus Schenk, who acquired and reissued a large body of Dutch map plates covering the British Isles toward the end of the seventeenth century. Like other Scottish sheets from this Amsterdam workshop, it draws heavily on cartography assembled decades earlier for Joan Blaeu's Atlas Novus, itself built on survey work by the Gordon family of Straloch, so the geography recorded here reflects fieldwork carried out well before the map's own publication date.

Inverness and Loch Ness anchor the western edge of the sheet, sitting at the entrance to the Great Glen that splits the Highlands in two, while Moray fills the middle ground and Aberdeen, already an established royal burgh and university town, holds the eastern side facing the North Sea. Further south, the sheet extends into Angus and Perthshire, with Dundee marked on the Firth of Tay and Perth further upstream, and Fraserburgh appears on the northern coast among the fishing settlements that would later grow into major herring ports. The result is a single sheet that ties together Highland, coastal and lowland Scotland at a scale few maps of the period attempted.

Few maps of the period cover Highland, coastal and lowland Scotland together quite this comprehensively, which makes it a useful reference and a thoughtful gift for anyone tracing family or local history across several traditional Scottish counties at once, whether for a birthday, a retirement, or simply a housewarming north of the border. It is available unframed across our full range of sizes.