10. William Stukeley 1723
William Stukeley (1687-1765), physician and
later clergyman, was a fellow of the Royal Society and secretary of the Society
of Antiquaries, which he helped to found. He made long antiquarian excursions
and was the author of both medical and antiquarian works. His Itinerarium Curiosum was the first of his
books regarding his antiquarian tours, and the plates show England before the
changes brought on by enclosure of the commons. John Michell (1984) writes: "As records
of ancient monuments these have never been surpassed. Archaeologists still
refer to Stukeley's plates and to the volumes of his manuscript notes and
sketches, many of them now in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, as accurate
accounts, often the only ones ever made, of monuments now vanished." The
work contained 100 engraved plates and maps (some folding), mostly by Stukeley
and engraved by Van der Gucht etc.
Title: ISCA DUMNONIORUM 19 Aug 1723
Size:
273 x 170 mm with A Scale of 1000 feet
(= 31 mm).
Signatures:
Stukeley delin and Parker Sculp.
There
is a dedication: Gulielmo Musgrave
M.D. Gulielmi filio. Amico suo d.d.W. Stukeley.
This is virtually a copy of
Fairlove’s but drawn to a similar scale to Nicholls’ version above but is
poorer in execution and it omits most of the lettering and references. He
repeats Fairlove’s houses but still without any
accuracy. The Key (quay) is too far inland and note the quirk in the
city wall occurs west of the north gate, not at the gate as in the two previous
plans. Stukeley has decided to ignore the blossoming serge trade and hardly a
rack is to be seen. Neither Bunhay nor Paris Street is named.
A copy of Stukeley's Itinerarium Curiosum is held in the New York Public Library and has been put on open access at https://babel.hathitrust.org/. The map is followed by a view of Exeter (see illustration by courtesy of Hathi Trust and New York Public Library, all rights reserved)
Illustration Reproduced by kind permission of Devon Archives & Local Studies - LM B/EXE/1723/STU.
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