The '1650' Map of Salford and Manchester

 

The maps shown below are copies of a survey of Manchester and Salford done in the second half of the seventeenth century. To those familiar with the geography of the area, looking at map 1 (and like versions) is disorienting. Initially, I thought this was due to the process of engraving and printing: the print being a mirror image of the engraved plate. However, this is not the case.

According to the conventions of modern European cartography, based on the use of the compass and magnetic north, maps are normally oriented to the North, that is, North is at the top of the map. Map 1 is shown with a south-up orientation. It was simply printed upside down, and copyists followed this slavishly. By contrast, maps 4, 5 and 7 are printed in the conventional manner. 

All of the maps shown below are copies of an original -- an editio princeps or archetype -- which is no longer extant. A careful study of their delineation shows that they differ in detail. For example, the 'F', representing Sergeant Street, seen on map 2, is absent from map 1. Map 1 has all the appearances of a 'rush-job'. Its Sacred Trinity Church, located at the apex of the 'Greengate Triangle' (see below) is reduced to a featureless box, while on map 2 it is iconic. Map 5 shows a similar Sacred Trinity icon, but it is the only map to have lost the symbol for Salford's market cross. There are also an obvious variety of legend styles. One way of looking at this is to create a stemma, which groups the maps into families. 

Stemma codicum

The archetype is the lost original. Copyists created a version (a) defined by having no street names attached to the Greengate Triangle, and all have a south-up orientation (maps 1,2,8,10). This family has two subdivisions, a1 and a2.  a1 (maps 1 and 2) refers to 'Sergeant Street' in the legend, and does not name the River Irwell. a2 (maps 8 and 10) do name the Irwell, but the legend, where present, does not mention 'Sergeant Street'. Version (b) names only Sergeant Street, and all examples spell the street name with a <g>. b1 (maps 6 and 9) are south-up oriented. b2 (maps 4 and 5) are north-up oriented. Within b2, b2a does not identify Acres Field (later to become St. Anne's Square).  In version (c) all the streets of the Greengate Triangle are named, and both maps (3 and 7), use the variant spelling 'Serjeant' with a <j>. Unfortunately, this spelling can not be used as an indicator of chronology, since <g>, <i> and <j> were all used in the spelling of the word well before the middle of the 17th century. Maps 3 and 7 are distinct in showing a symbol or an icon for Manchester Cathedral and Sacred Trinity, while at the same time actually naming them. Within version (c), c1 (map 3) is south-up oriented, while c2 (map 7) is north-up oriented. This is only a rudimentary stemma, and any interested scholar would surely find further refinements.

Roeder's assessment of map 1 (c.1746) and map 6 (1822), led him to the following conclusion: 

"There cannot be any doubt, however, that of the two plans. Berry's of 1746 and Yates's, the latter is the more reliable one, and, as I consider, the only genuine copy of the original, from which it was produced. I have placed before you, for inspection, a copy of Berry's and Yates's plan, and you will see at once that Berry's plan is very faulty — it seems to have been copied stealthily and in a hurry by somebody who had access to it. On examination you will find that part of Millgate, the whole block of Chetham College, the Session House, the block between Smithy Door and Deansgate, are put down wrong, and misleading; while Yates's plan shows them correctly drawn and strictly conforming in structure with Tinker's and Green's careful plans." [1]

You will notice on maps 4 and 6 that they were copied from a plan in the possession of William Yates, Esq. Any mention of William Yates in the context of maps, immediately brings to mind the cartographer responsible for creating the first modern map of Lancashire in 1786, but he is not the person referred to here. Our William Yates was an eccentric antiquarian collector, the son of David Yates, a Manchester upholstery trimmings manufacturer. William was responsible for purchasing two Medieval houses in 1822, which were about to be demolished in order the widen Market Street. He had the structures carefully dismantled, moved and rebuilt on Bury New Road, and the reconstructed building became known as 'Yates' Folly' or Knoll House. Also in 1822, John Palmer published his work, The History of the Siege of Manchester. It contained map 6, which was reproduced from a copy in  William Yate's collection of antiquarian curiosities. Palmer's work was published by Manchester's premier antiquarian bookseller, William Ford. [2] It is known that William Yates was an avid customer of Ford's.[3], and it is more than likely that Yates purchased his map from Ford.  Hence, Palmer knew of Yates' map through his publisher. Here the trail goes cold, because we have no idea where Ford might have acquired Yates' copy of the map. However, we have a time frame into which the archetype was created. It was produced after 1635, because that was the year Sacred Trinity was built, and it is included on the maps. Berry (maps 1 and 2) had seen a copy around 1750. Chetham's College, built in 1653, is named only on map 5, but its naming may have been a later addition and therefore of no chronological value.  Roeder suggests that the original map may have been created  as a response to the orders of the Court Leet of the Manor of Manchester on the 5th of October, 1669 to "survey the lands & tenements within the said town of Manchester that so every man may bear an equal portion in the said taxes." Whether or not the survey was completed is uncertain, but the problem persisted, and a similar order was issued on the 8th of October 1672. [4] The completed survey was presented to the court on the 8th of April 1673. A search for this document in the 1880s proved fruitless, but it is highly likely it is the lost archetype.

Maps: Right Click and Open in New Window to Enlarge

Map 1 

Map 2

Map 3. 

Map 4. 

Map 5 

Map 6

Map 7

Map 8

Map 9

Map 10 

     

Map 1. [Inset] of A plan of the towns of Manchester & Salford in the county palatine of Lancaster, published by John Berry and Russel Casson. Manchester, c.1746, flat sheet. Engravings by B. Cole. sculp. [printed by] Palmer & Howe, Manchester.

Map 2. As above. Published by John Berry, grocer, at the New Tea Warehouse, Manchester, 1750. (coloured later). For full map see Manchester Archives

Map 3. [Inset] of A topographical plan of Manchester and Salford, with adjacent parts by Charles Laurent, published Dec. 9, 1793, Manchester. From A Description of the County from Thirty to Forty Miles Round Manchester by J. Aikin. (Engraved by John Cary).  Reproduced in Views of Old Manchester (series 1) Manchester: Mancunium Velveteen, 1885, page 4.

Map 4. [Inset] of Manchester and its environs, engraved from an actual survey made in 1824 by William Swire, Leeds, for the History, Directory and Gazetteer of the County Palatine of Lancaster by Edward Baines, published by W. Wales & Co, Liverpool, 1825, 2 vols. (Engraved by Franks and Johnson of Leeds)

Map 5. Richard Hollingworth Mancuniensis; or, an history of the towne of Manchester, and what is most memorable concerning it. Manchester: W. Willis, 1839, frontis. (Engraved by Stephenson & Royston of Manchester) 

Map 6. John Palmer The history of the Siege of Manchester by the king's forces under the command of Lord Strange, 1642. Manchester: Printed by John Leigh, 1822, frontis. Reproduced in J. Everett Panorama of Manchester and railway companion, Manchester, Everett, 1834, facing page 30. 
Reproduced in Craig Homer (ed.) The Diary of Edmund Harrold, wigmaker of Manchester, 1712-15 Abingdon: Routledge, 2008, frontis.

Map 7. John Harland A volume of court leet records of the Manor of Manchester in the sixteenth century Manchester: Chetham Society, 1864, frontis.

Map 8. George Saintsbury Manchester: a history of the town London: Longmans, 1887. A version of this was reproduced in Robina McNeil and Richard Newman  'Post-Medieval Period Resource Assessment' 2006, Archaeology North West. 8. 145-164, page 151.

Map 9. William Arthur Shaw Manchester: old and new, vol. 1 London: Cassell, 1894, page 8 (map redrawn by H.E. Tidmarsh).

Map 10. Ernest Broxap 'The siege of Manchester in 1642' in Historical Essays, edited by T.F. Tout and James Tait. Manchester University Press, 1907, page 383. See also Broxap 1910 The Great Civil War in Lancashire map (cf. map 8).

* * *

The 'Greengate Triangle'

Map 11

The "Greengate Triangle" represents the ancient core of Salford. It is bounded by Chapel Street (formerly Sergeant Street), Back Salford, later renamed Green Gate of Greengate, which gives its name to the area, and Gravel Lane. Trinity Chapel, built in 1635, can be seen at the southern corner of the triangle. The Salford Cross and The Exchange, the name for the Borough Court (Portmote or Court Leet), was sited in the market square at the northern corner of the triangle. Salford was the judicial centre of the Salford Hundred (Salfordshire). Manchester Cathedral and Chetham's College are situated on the other side of the River Irwell, which acted as the boundary between the two polities. 

Map 11 A plan of Manchester and Salford. Drawn from an actual survey by William Green. Begun in the year 1787 and compleated in 1794. Engraved by J. Thornton, W. Thomas sculpt. View the full map at Manchester University Library.

                                   * * *

The lost archetype seemingly owes a debt to the work of the famed British cartographer, John Speed (1551-1629) of Farndon, Cheshire. His county maps championed the use of  insets, which delineated the street layout of featured cities. On his map of Lancashire, the inset focuses on the rudimentary street plan of Lancaster (see map 12 below). Within Speed's inset, he uses an alphabetized legend, with letters used to identify places on the map. This idea was used in many of the maps surveyed above. 

Map 12 John Speed's Map of the County Palatine of Lancaster 1610

Inset of Map 12 showing the town plan of Lancaster

[1] C. Roeder 1904, 'Maps and plans of Manchester' in Transactions of the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society, vol. 21 for 1903, 153-171.

[2] Brenda J. Scragg 1999, 'William Ford, Manchester bookseller', in Peter Isaac and Barry McKay (eds) The human face of the book trade: print culture and its creators Winchester: St. Paul's Bibliographies, page 163.

[3] T. Swindells Manchester streets and Manchester men, Manchester: Cornish, 1908, page 185.

[4] C. Roeder 1904, op cit, 155. J. P. Earwaker (ed.) The Court Leet records of the manor of Manchester, Manchester, 1887, volume 5, pages 95, 191, 194.

See also:

City of Manchester Plan, 1945