Old Map of London and 24 Miles Around 1820 – Mogg

£39.95

Mogg’s Map of London and the Country Twenty-Four Miles Round, 1820

This distinctive circular map places London at the centre of a broad landscape extending roughly twenty-four miles from the capital. The 1820 edition reaches from Hertford in the north to Reigate in the south, and from Windsor in the west to Gravesend in the east, bringing together the city and the surrounding towns, roads and countryside in a single striking composition.

The circular format immediately sets it apart from conventional London maps. Roads radiate outward from the capital through Middlesex, Surrey, Kent, Essex and Hertfordshire, while towns, villages, parks, woodland and important buildings fill the surrounding landscape. It is a map designed not simply to show London itself, but to help the viewer understand the region through which travellers approached and left the city.

This edition belongs to a sequence of maps issued by Edward Mogg in the early nineteenth century. Mogg specialised in practical road books, guides and maps for travellers, and his work reflects the increasing mobility of the Georgian period. Turnpike roads, coaching routes and expanding communications made the country around London more accessible than ever before.

The 1820 date is also important because it places the map after the Battle of Waterloo but before the railway age. Roads still dominate long-distance movement, and settlements that would later become London suburbs remain separate towns and villages within open country.

For anyone interested in Georgian travel, the Home Counties or London before railways reshaped the region, Mogg’s circular map offers a highly distinctive historical view.

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Edward Mogg’s 1820 map of London and the surrounding country is a striking example of early nineteenth-century travel cartography. Its circular design places the capital at the centre of a network of roads, towns and landscapes extending approximately twenty-four miles in every direction.

Map Details

  • Cartographer / publisher: Edward Mogg
  • Date: 1820
  • Map type: Circular regional map centred on London
  • Coverage: Approximately twenty-four miles around London
  • Extent: Hertford to Reigate, Windsor to Gravesend
  • Features: Roads, towns, villages, parks, woodland and principal buildings

London Before the Railway Age

The map belongs to the last great period when roads and coaching routes dominated travel around the capital. Railways had not yet begun to redraw the geography of the region, so the older road network remains the principal framework linking London with surrounding settlements.

A Circular View of the Home Counties

The circular format is both practical and visually unusual. By making London the centre point, the map emphasises distance and connection: routes spread outward toward Windsor, Hertford, Gravesend, Reigate and dozens of smaller places between them.

Edward Mogg and Travel Mapping

Mogg was well known for guides, road books and maps intended for travellers. His publications were part of a growing market for practical geographical information in the early nineteenth century, when coaching, turnpike roads and domestic travel were increasingly important.

A Landscape of Separate Towns and Villages

Many places shown around London would later be absorbed into the expanding metropolis, but in 1820 they remained distinct settlements surrounded by countryside. The map therefore records the wider London region immediately before nineteenth-century urban growth began to transform it.

Why This Map Stands Out

Its combination of broad geographical coverage and unusual circular design makes it one of the more distinctive London maps of the period. It is especially rewarding for anyone interested in road travel, Georgian London and the historic Home Counties.

Print size: approximately 24" × 26". Supplied unframed.