UK: Author Daniel MacCannell has been mapping the fascinating history of Oxford in a stunning new book. The book titled Oxford: Mapping the City, takes a close look at a wide variety of maps which have been produced over the years for a wide variety of reasons.
Maps were made as part of schemes to defend Oxford from rampaging Roundheads, raging floodwaters, the ravages of cholera and the insidious grip of the demon drink.
They were also created to plan the new canals and bridges of the 18th century, and the railways, tramways and suburbs of the 19th, to determine and display changes in the city’s political stature under the Reform Acts and even to aid police enforcement against homosexuality.
In his introduction Mr MacCannell said: “Through the 57 maps printed here, some of them for the first time, the city emerges not only as the scene of great triumphs of cartography, architecture, engineering, science, music, literature and drama, but of appalling squalor, overcrowding, terrible fires, drunkenness, disease, mob justice, political violence and religious bigotry.
“Oxford’s wealth, defensibility, and tradition as an alternative capital of England dating back to the days of King Harold Harefoot also made it the target of military designs, domestic and foreign.
“This status as a stronghold, rallying point and target began long before the age of detailed city mapping – notably in the 12th century civil war between Queen Maud and King Stephen – and continued right through it, as reflected in the maps we have from the civil war of the 1640s and the Seven Years’ War.
“Any town with a population heavily skewed to young, unmarried men, mostly from privileged backgrounds, will inevitably develop a distinctive set of chronic public-order problems.
“In the 17th century, for instance, the university demanded that they city’s taverns be built without back doors so that the university police would have an easier time apprehending undergraduates illicitly drinking in them.”
Mr. MacCannell said because there was limited space, he was unable to include maps of places other than Oxford created by people in the city, including those featured in fictional works by fantasy authors JJR Tolkien, CS Lewis and Philip Pullman.
