Old Map of Shropshire in 1844 by Samuel Lewis - Shrewsbury, Telford, Wellington, Market Drayton, Ludlow

This map of Shropshire was engraved in 1844 for the county atlas that accompanied Samuel Lewis's Topographical Dictionary of England, the companion project to his Irish and Welsh dictionaries. Lewis's maps were working documents rather than showpieces: each county was drawn to the same clean standard, with hundreds, turnpike roads, rivers and market towns laid out for a readership that wanted accuracy above ornament. The Shropshire sheet shows the county in the early Victorian years, when the ironworks of the Severn Gorge had made this quiet border county one of the crucibles of the Industrial Revolution.

Shrewsbury, the county town, sits at the centre of the map inside its great loop of the River Severn, its medieval street plan and timber-fronted buildings much as they remain today. Wellington appears at the foot of The Wrekin — the market town that now forms part of modern Telford, a town which did not yet exist in 1844. Downstream, Bridgnorth is divided between High Town and Low Town above the Severn, with Broseley and the iron district close by. Oswestry guards the Welsh border in the north-west, Ludlow and its castle command the southern hills, and Church Stretton lies among the uplands between them. The market towns of Market Drayton, Whitchurch — Roman Mediolanum — Wem, Ellesmere beside its mere, Newport, Shifnal and Much Wenlock, birthplace of Olympic pioneer William Penny Brookes, complete the picture.

This sheet is a companion to the John Speed map of Shropshire already in our collection: Speed shows the county of 1611 with Jacobean decoration, while Lewis records the practical, densely settled Shropshire of 233 years later, and the two make a handsome pair on a wall. On its own it is a well-judged gift for anyone with roots in Shrewsbury, Ludlow or the Welsh Marches, a walker of the south Shropshire hills, or a family that has moved away and wants the county in view at home. The map is printed unframed on quality paper stock and is available in nine sizes, from 16x20 inches up to A0.