Road Strip Map: The Road from London to Bristol, 1753

The Road from London to Bristol. Photographed at Chippenham Museum during their
Georgian season exhibition.

'Caln' and the Arms of Calne.

This 1753 map was one of many that appeared in Britannia Depicta, an illustrated road atlas covering Britain. It was first printed in 1720 and subsequently updated with engravings by many artists until the 1800s. Britannia Depicta was printed by Emanuel Bowen and John Owen's firm and is based from earlier work by John Ogilby.

This strip map covered the journey from London to Bristol and covered pages 22-26. This page is of interest because is covers Calne, not only showing the familiar castle and feathers that are still included in our coat of arms, but also because it records the name of our town as 'Caln' and 'Calne'.

Other local places covered by this book are Chippenham (which is on the other side of the Calne page), Marlborough, and Devizes, which includes a short history of the castle.

The entire book is available on the Archive.org website. To access or download the book, click this link, or navigate to the website and search from there.