Britannia Depicta

Illustration from Bowen's Britannica Depicta

Britannia Depicta or Ogilby improv'd was an illustrated road atlas for Britain. It was printed in numerous editions over many decades from 1720 into the 19th century and updated with engravings by many artisans who worked from drawings of other artists. It featured strip maps.[1]

Road from Bristol to Banbury

The atlas was based on the earlier work of John Ogilby who published his Britannia, the first British road atlas drwn to scale, in 1675. Britannia Depicta was printed in 1720 by Emanuel Bowen and John Owen's firm Bowen & Owen. It was one of Bowen's earliest works.

A road atlas, it contains two hundred and seventy three road maps along with drawings of landmarks and miniature county maps[2] of each of the counties of England and Wales. It augmented John Ogilby's original with additional historical and heraldic detail. As the atlas was printed with maps on both sides of each page, this resulted in a handier-sized book.

  1. ^ "Transactions and Annual Report". 1921.
  2. ^ "300-year-old Britannia Depicta atlas found in Newcastle Oxfam shop - the Journal". Archived from the original on 2020-07-05. Retrieved 2018-06-11.