Catalogue description Public Record Office: Maps and plans extracted to flat storage from various series of records of the State Paper Office

This series contains maps, plans, including plans illustrating naval and military actions, topographical views, architectural and other drawings, and an illuminated letter in Arabic, all extracted from various records created or accumulated by the State Paper Office (SP). Many pieces were formerly held in the series SP 112 and SP 64. The geographical areas covered include the United Kingdom and Ireland, Europe and North America; substantial numbers of pieces relate to Ireland in the sixteenth and seventh centuries, and to the Low Countries from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. Many pieces include textual material extracted in association with the maps and drawings. There is, however, no common subject matter.

As far as possible, places depicted on maps or drawings are identified in catalogue descriptions by the names given on, or contemporary with, the documents themselves, although spellings have been modernised and standardised to facilitate searching. Where there has been a significant change to the name of a place or that of the political or geographical area in which it is situated, the current name is usually given in brackets after the name taken from the document. If it has not been possible to identify the place named, the name given on the map or drawing is noted in inverted commas. If no place is named, and the location cannot be identified, this is noted explicitly in the description. Places now in the London area, but outside the City of London, are identified according to the county or borough in which they were situated at the date when the map or plan was produced.

Please note: Digital images of MPF 1/35-102 (maps extracted from SP 64/1-3) are available to download.