58 



The Earliest Map of Bath. By Emanuel Green, F.S.A. 

 (Pi,ea(l 13th January, 1886.) 



In the British Museum there is a manuscript, a quarto volume, 

 entitled: The Particular Description of England, with the 

 Portratures of Certaine of the ChiefFest Citties and Townes. 

 Having been given by Sir Paul Methuen to Sir Hans Sloane, 

 it now reposes in the Sloane Collection, being numbered 2,596. 

 The author of the book was one William Smith, who, after being 

 at Oxford, studied heraldry and antiquities, became Kouge 

 Dragon, and died in 1618. He scams in his wanderings to have 

 copied the plans of different citic ^. when he found them already 

 done, and when not so, to have drawn them for himself. The 

 plans given are all coloured. Briscol, placed with the county of 

 Gloucester, is labelled : — Measured and laid in Platforme by me, 

 Wm. Smith, at my being at Bristow, the 30th and 31st July, Ano, 

 Dom, 1568. Canterbury is dated 1588 ; and as the title page is 

 dated 1588, it may be fairly assumed that the work was then 

 finished. It may be mentioned that the volume has been privately 

 printed ; but so privately and so small an impression that the 

 fact is barely known. 



Bath, described as but a "little Cittie, yet one of ye most 

 auncientest in England," is here reproduced. Taking it in hand 

 as a novelty, as if the sight were quite new, it is seen to be a 

 walled city. Then comes the desire to know all about those 

 walls. The Domesday survey does not mention it, as it does a 

 few other places, as being a walled city. Two years later, in 

 1088, our histories mention, as Florence of Worcester and other 

 Chroniclers record, the coming of a party from Bristol in rebellion 

 against William Eufus, when Bath was burned, plundered and 

 devastated : William of Malmesbury says, depopulated and the 

 spoils treasured up at Bristol. These are very strong words. 

 There is again no intimation in these accounts that it was a 

 walled city, or that it offered resistance as if it were so. Passing 



