{"product_id":"old-map-berkshire-1844-lewis","title":"Old Map of Berkshire in 1844 by Samuel Lewis - Reading, Windsor, Newbury, Abingdon, Henley-on-Thames","description":"\u003cp\u003eSamuel Lewis built his publishing business around an enormous reference project, the Topographical Dictionary of England, which set out to describe every city, town, and parish in the country along with its population, industry, and history. First issued in the early 1830s and updated through several later editions, the dictionary was accompanied by a set of county maps engraved to help readers locate the places described in the text, and this Berkshire sheet comes from an 1844 edition, produced at a moment when the Great Western Railway had only just reached across the county and was beginning to reshape towns like Reading.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe map lays out Reading as the county's principal town at the junction of the Thames and Kennet, Windsor with its royal castle and great park, and Newbury on the Kennet to the west, still known for the cloth trade that had built its fortune centuries earlier. Abingdon appears on the Thames south of Oxford, once briefly considered the county town in its own right, while Henley-on-Thames is shown just a few years before its regatta, first held in 1839, grew into the famous rowing event that still draws crowds to the river each summer. Wallingford, Maidenhead, and the wooded slopes of the Chiltern Hills along the county's eastern edge round out the sheet.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFamily historians researching Berkshire ancestors will find this map useful for placing parishes named in Lewis's dictionary entries within their wider landscape, while collectors of Victorian topographical publishing will recognise it as a good example of maps produced to serve a reference book rather than to stand alone. It suits anyone with a connection to the Thames valley towns it covers, from Reading to Henley, and it has been reproduced at high resolution with prints available in a variety of sizes to fit any wall.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"TheMapVault","offers":[{"title":"16x20 inch - UNFRAMED","offer_id":57796065689931,"sku":"1032-16x20","price":25.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"A2 (42x60cm) - UNFRAMED","offer_id":57796065722699,"sku":"1032-A2","price":25.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"18x24 inch - UNFRAMED","offer_id":57796065755467,"sku":"1032-18x24","price":25.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"50x70 cm - UNFRAMED","offer_id":57796065788235,"sku":"1032-50x70","price":30.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"A1 (60x84cm) - UNFRAMED","offer_id":57796065821003,"sku":"1032-A1","price":40.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"24x32 inch - UNFRAMED","offer_id":57796065853771,"sku":"1032-24x32","price":40.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"70x100 cm - UNFRAMED","offer_id":57796065886539,"sku":"1032-70x100","price":50.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"75x100 cm - UNFRAMED","offer_id":57796065919307,"sku":"1032-75x100","price":50.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"A0 (84x119cm) - UNFRAMED","offer_id":57796065952075,"sku":"1032-A0","price":55.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0907\/2456\/5323\/files\/SKU1032Mock004.jpg?v=1783534661","url":"https:\/\/www.themapvault.com\/products\/old-map-berkshire-1844-lewis","provider":"TheMapVault","version":"1.0","type":"link"}