Northumberland, Cumbria and Durham – Northumbria, Cumberlandia, et Dunelmensis Episcopatus

North England

A beautiful early seventeenth century map of the northern counties of England, from a Latin edition of the Mercator-Hondius Atlas Major, essentially a reprint of Mercator’s earlier Atlas sive Cosmographiae further expanded with new plates engraved by Hondius. The map shows Cumbria, Northumberland, Westmorland, Durham, and adjacent parts of Lancashire, Yorkshire, and Scotland. County boundaries are outlined in hand colour, and Mercator’s heavily hatchured seas are washed in blue. Forests, rivers, lakes, and hills are depicted pictorially, and principal cities and towns are picked out in red. Hadrian’s wall, depicted as a hatched line, is here labelled as the ‘Murus Picticus,’ the Picts’ Wall. The map is further embellished with a large and ornate strapwork cartouche in the top left corner, above a scale in English miles.