John Kirby’s Suffolk: His Maps and Roadbooks: with a Facsimile of The Suffolk Traveller, 1735

Here, published in facsimile for the first time since the eighteenth century, are John Kirby’s extremely rare large-scale Suffolk maps of 1736 and 1737 and the 1735 edition of his road-book The Suffolk Traveller, the earliest single-county roadbook. Those who subscribed for the 1736 map received the 1735 Traveller gratis. The maps of 1764 and 1766 which his sons published after his death are also provided, the former decorated with twelve engravings of castles and abbeys in the county. The earliest maps were the result of a survey of the whole county which Kirby carried out, with some help from Nathaniel Bacon, between 1732 and 1734. Although it is easy to point to inaccuracies, the hand-coloured maps are highly decorative and correct many of the errors common on earlier Suffolk maps in county atlases. The heraldry on the one-inch maps and the named owners and occupiers of the larger estates provide the basis for new select directories of the county in the mid 1730s and mid-1760s. This work of Suffolk topography includes a biography of John Kirby himself and a full account of the travails of publishing his maps and book. Contributions by JENNY JAMES.