Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Town and country
LONDON, 1803
At the turn of the 19th century, London was a much smaller place than it is today. Many loc-
alities now considered central districts within the capital - for example, Knightsbridge and St
Pancras - still lay outside the built-up area (tinted in light ochre on this map). A few miles
further afield, villages like Clapham remained truly rural. The image opposite shows only
part of a much larger manuscript map; the complete item extends much further to the north,
east and south to cover the countryside as far away as Mill Hill, Barking and Croydon.
The pink blocks around the edges of this extract represent part of a ring of defences set
up to protect London from an expected invasion by the French Emperor Napoleon. These
provide a clue to the map's military origin. Drawn in February 1803 by W Chambers and
J Anderson, two officer cadets at the Royal Military Academy in Woolwich, it was largely
copied from an earlier map of September 1801, which is believed not to have survived. The
map provides evidence of the degree of professional training that the British Army had begun
to develop for men in technical roles, such as surveying and cartography, and the quality of
