Georg Braun & Franz Hogenberg: Londinium Feracissmi Angliae Regni Metropolis

. Published in Braun & Hogenberg’s book Civitates Orbis Terrarum, 1572, London is depicted in bird’s-eye view from the south looking north. Above the plan is the title in Latin flanked by the royal and the City of London’s arms. All images: Daniel Crouch Rare Books

Thomas Porter: The Newest and Exactest Mapp of the most Famous Citties London and Westminster with their Suburbs; and the manner of their Streets.

The map is probably based upon a copy of the “Ryther” map, now in the Bodleian Library. The omission of the Stuart’s royal coat-of-arms would suggest it was printed in the 1650s.

John Rocque: An Exact Survey of the Citys of London, Westminster, ye Borough of Southwark, and the Country near Ten Miles round, 1746.

One of the finest maps of – what is now – Greater London. It appears Rocque, a French Huguenot, moved with his family to London in the 1730s, where he began to ply his trade as a surveyor of gentleman’s estates.

Richard Horwood: Plans of the Cities of London and Westminster, The Borough of Southwark and Parts Adjoining, Shewing Every House, 1800.

Horwood’s map was the largest map ever printed in Britain at the time, and the first attempt to produce a map of London with all of the houses delineated and numbered.

Edward Langley and William Belch. New Map of London.

The plan of this map from 1812 is marked off in half miles, with the plan itself divided into lettered squares. It shows prominent London buildings and the intended construction of a pair of bridges across the Thames, at Vauxhall and another which became known as Waterloo Bridge.

Christopher Greenwood: Map of London, from an actual survey made in 1824.1825 and 1826.

Christopher and John Greenwood stated that the plan was made from an “Actual Survey”, which had taken three years. Plans at the time were often copied from older surveys, or reissued with minor updating. Conducting a new survey was something to boast about.

George Cruchley: New Plan of London improved to 1836.

Cruchley began his cartographic career in the publishing firm of Aaron Arrowsmith. The present map, published on a scale of almost five inches to the mile, was issued in 1826, with Cruchley reissuing it several times over the following 20 years, each time updating it with the fresh additions.

Charles Booth: Descriptive Map of London Poverty, 1889

. By street: “The Lowest Class. Semi-criminal” (black); “Very Poor” (blue); “Poor. 18s to 21s a week” (light blue); “Mixed. Some comfortable/others poor” (purple); “Fairly Comfortable.” (pink); “Middle class” (red); “Upper-middle and Upper classes.” (yellow).

MacDonald Gill: London Underground map 1922.

A poster for the tube network, which came with the tagline: ‘In the Heat of the Summer you will find me cool …’ In the lower left corner there is a note that indicates copies of the map are available for 5/- from the Traffic Advertising Agent, Electric Railway House, Broadway House, Westminster, SW1.

Stephen Walter: London Subterranea.

The map was specially commission by the London Transport Museum for their 2012 Mind the Map Exhibition, to coincide with the 150th anniversary of the London Underground. For this work Walter has charted the buried rivers, tube lines, bunkers, sewers, government tunnels and other subterranean secrets of London.