Old Map of Warwickshire in 1844 by Samuel Lewis - Birmingham, Coventry, Stratford-upon-Avon

This map of Warwickshire was engraved in 1844 to accompany Samuel Lewis's Topographical Dictionary of England, a multi-volume reference that set out to describe every county, parish and market town in the country as they stood in the early Victorian period. Lewis's publishing house in London commissioned a matching county atlas so that readers could locate the parishes discussed in the text, and the result is a precise, hundred-by-hundred record of Warwickshire on the eve of the railway boom that would soon redraw the Midlands. It shows the county as a patchwork of ancient hundreds and market towns rather than the industrial conurbation Birmingham and Coventry would become within a generation, making it a useful reference point for how the region looked just before large-scale factory building took hold.

Birmingham, already known by 1844 as the City of a Thousand Trades, anchors the north-west of the sheet, its metalworking trades having driven the Industrial Revolution for decades before this map was engraved. Coventry, famous for its medieval cathedral and the legend of Lady Godiva, sits to the east as a long-established centre of the textile trade, while Stratford-upon-Avon, birthplace of William Shakespeare, appears to the south among Tudor market streets and the water meadows of the River Avon. Warwick, seat of the imposing Warwick Castle, and Rugby, whose school later gave its name to rugby football, complete the principal towns, with Leamington Spa, Coleshill, Bidford-on-Avon, Hartshill and Tanworth-in-Arden marked among the county's smaller settlements. The Coventry Canal and the fringes of the Cotswolds to the south round out a landscape balanced between industry and countryside.

It would make a fitting gift for anyone whose family roots trace back to Birmingham, Coventry, or one of Warwickshire's smaller market towns such as Coleshill or Bidford-on-Avon, or for a relative who has only recently begun piecing together their Midlands ancestry using old parish and hundred boundaries like the ones shown here. It also suits a milestone tied to Stratford-upon-Avon or Warwick, whether that's a wedding held near the Avon, a retirement after decades working in Coventry, or simply a housewarming for someone settling in the county town. Sold unframed and available in a full range of sizes, the print can be scaled from a small study piece to a larger statement print for a hallway or office.