BEDFORDSHIRE

Considering the popularity and success of Camden’s “Britannia”, first issued with maps in 1607, it is surprising that it was not until the end of the seventeenth century that a new edition was prepared. Robert Morden (d.1703) was commissioned to engrave a set of county maps for this new edition by Edmund Gibson. However, the first series he prepared were rejected as being too small, and these were later published in Morden’s “New Description and State of England”, first issued in 1701, and subsequently re-issued in Cox’s “Magna Britannia”, in the 1720s.

Morden finally produced a new set of maps on a larger scale which were used in Gibson’s editions published in 1695, 1722, circa 1730, 1753 and 1772. The maps were based on the most up-to-date surveys where available, although some drew on Saxton and Speed, and were engraved by Sutton Nicholls and John Sturt.