Waterways maps: A Plan of a Navigable Canal Intended for Communication between the Ports of Liverpool and Hull
Bibliographic details
- Mapmaker: unknown
- Date: [1776]
- Scale: c. 1:750,000
- Source: Bodleian Libraries / shelfmark: (E) C17:1 (10)
- URL: The Map Room, Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford
- © Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, 2010
"The eighteenth century saw a boom in canal building in Britain. Typical of the many canals was the Trent and Mersey Canal, built to link the two rivers. The map shows the canal network already in place around Manchester and Macclesfield, including one of the earliest canals, built by the Duke of Bridgewater to carry coal from his mines at Worsley. An interesting feature of the map is the compass rose, with its ornate north pointer, but still featuring a cross pointing to the east. This harks back to the early tradition of having east at the top of the map (hence the term 'orienting' a map)" (The Map Room, Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford).
