A detailed plan of Fitzrovia at the end of the 18th century

HORWOOD, Richard.

[Fitzrovia .]
London: 1793-4. 565 x 525mm.

Sheet 1B from Horwood's survey of London, on a scale of 26 inches to a mile, covering Fitzrovia.

The area mapped is from Tottenham Court Road west to Devonshire Place, marking Fitzroy Square (without the central garden in the completed map).

There is little development north of the Euston Road, but of interest is 'Jews Harp House', a coffee house that was a hot-bed of Jacobin insurrection. William Blake refers to it and the nearby farm in his poem 'Jerusalem': 'The Jews-harp-house & the Green Man; / The Ponds here Boys to bathe delight: / The fields of Cows by Willans farm: Shine in Jerusalems pleasant sight'. Within twenty years both had disappeared as the area was developed as Regent's Park.
Very early examples of this plate has a view looking north from the 'New Road' (Euston Road); by the time the map was completed this was replaced with mapping, as this example, but the join in the plate can still be seen.

HOWGEGO: 200, and pp.21-22, the 'largest and most important London map of the eighteenth century',
Stock ID : 20824