8.       Ichabod Fairlove                                                                                                 1709

 


In 1709 Ichabod Fairlove was the first surveyor to produce a plan of the city since Hooker and Robert Sherwood (who produced a number of manuscript maps and plans) nearly 100 years earlier. This was the first printed plan produced entirely in the City. The engraver, Joseph Coles also illustrated William Musgrave’s antiquarian works and the map was distributed by Edward Score, the Exeter bookseller. It included illustrations of the major buildings in the City and became the model for both Nicholls and William Stukeley in 1723 and remained the standard until John Rocque’s survey of 1744 (see 11). Only one edition is believed to have been printed and it was possibly issued separately as a broadsheet map.[1]

 

Title: A True Plan of the City of Excester

Size: 545 x 450 mm with A scale of 1000 feet (= 102 mm or 1Mile = 540 mm.).

Signature: Ichd. Fairlove Surveyed Ios Coles Sculp 

There is a wreathed dedication: This plan is humbly dedicated to Mr. CALEB LOWDHAM Junr.  of the Citty Surgeon by Joseph Coles- 

Imprint: Sold by Edward Score Bookseller over agt  the Guild-hall            

The map is decorated with four vignettes in the corners: the So. West Prospect of the Cathedral; the Guildhall; the Work-House; and the Custom-House. The left hand panel contains a column with a lettered strip wound round it St. Peters Church foundd By K. Athelstan AD 932. 43 years Building and is surmounted by the Bishop’s Arms below two heraldic snakes twisted round two north points and the sun over the date Anno Domin MDCCIX. The right hand panel is similar but with the winding strip reading Urb. Condit. Anno Mundi 2855. Ant Christ 1100. The City’s Arms are above with the snakes, north points and sun but no date. The scale bar is vertical.

The plan is drawn with north to the left and following the Hooker format shows the city from just over the bridge to St. Sidwell and from St. David's Hill to Wynard’s Alms Houses on the London Road. Moving away from the bird’s-eye view it gives a better shape for the city. It is a street plan with only churches and the Bishop’s Palace drawn eye-view (but not the cathedral, shown with an internal plan). Principal buildings are either titled or numbered to the reference key. The Cathedral gates, the Great Conduit and the Alms Houses are shown. Of special note are the Shambles and the Bridewell in Goldsmiths Street, the Guildhall on High Street and the arch at the bottom of Key Lane. The serge industry is expanding: Rack Lane (11), illustrated on all maps so far, is identifiable but so, too, is the serge market with its stalls in Southgate Street (17), and there are racks set up at all points west of the city with Shilhay now covered[2]. Houses are shown diagrammatically and far too small: for example, some 13 houses are shown on the east side of Cook Row, in Southgate Street, as against the 8 in Hooker’s plan of the city. The crane (Izacke’s wind mill) has gone from the quay. Note the spelling of Bunny for Bunhay and Paree for Paris (Street). Lethbridge’s Alms Houses (1668) in St. James Street are shown.

It is interesting to compare this with the following two entries (Nicholls and Stukeley) as it clearly was the model from which they both worked.

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[1] Copies at DRO and WSL. Illustration Reproduced by kind permission of Devon Archives & Local Studies - OM B/EXE/1709/COL.

[2] To the eye it actually looks as though there are  two Rack Lanes parallel to each other near the west gate, but they are, in fact, Rack Lane and Rock’s Lane.

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