Old maps are of course of great interest to us here at Intriguing history and we are continually looking for resources that make the study of them online possible.

• Two prominent English map makers come to mind when we think of old maps, John Speed 1542 – 1629 and Ralph Agas 1540 – 1629
• Ralph Agas was a land surveyor with a mathematical bent of mind, who was born and lived in Stoke – by Nayland in Suffolk.
• His best known maps, more a birds eye view, are of Oxford 1578, Cambridge 1592 and London, whose date is uncertain but thought to be no earlier than 1591.

They are very beautiful to look at and full of surprising detail. The maps of Oxford and Cambridge are at the Bodleian and the London map is in the Pepysian Collection at Magdalene College Cambridge.

Luckily for us though, the University of Victoria in Canada was given permission by The London Metropolitan Archive to use the Agas map as a platform to link to projects on Elizabethan London. The site is constantly being added to as students develop projects and it is a super resource.

Their inventiveness in using the map in such a dynamic interactive way is brilliant. Click through to see the Map of Early Modern London

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