CHRISTOPHER & JOHN GREENWOOD

Christopher Greenwood was born in 1786 followed by John in 1791 in the Yorkshire village of Murton near York now best known for the Yorkshire Museum of Farming and the Derwent Valley Light Railway. Back in the late 18th century it must have been an idyllic rural place to grow up. Perhaps that is why Christopher trained locally as a land surveyor before later working in Dewsbury and Wakefield around 1815 where he started to survey Yorkshire followed by Lancashire. His long term aim was to produce a large scale atlas of the conties of England and Wales.

In 1818 he opened an office at 50, Leicester Square, London followed two years later at 70 Queen Street, Cheapside. Here he was joined by his brother John in 1822. This period saw the publication of quite a number of large scale county map, many printed on four sheets. Some with Christopher's father-in-law William Fowler and ohers with George Pringle and his son. Some county map collectors will be able to own one of these magnificent maps large scale maps of their own county. But not all the counties were mapped for these monster items.

All this work culminated in a folio atlas titled "Atlas of the Counties of England, from Actual Surveys made from the years 1817 to 1833 by C. & J. Greenwood, Published by the Proprietors Greenwood & Co. Burleigh Street, Strand. London. Published April 1st, 1834. Engraved by J. & C. Walker. These were prepared on a smaller scale of 3 miles to the inch. It contains forty-two maps of the English Counties and four maps which group Welsh counties together.

Flintshire, Denbighshire and Montgomeryshire
Anglesey, Cartnarvonshire and Merionethshire
Cardiganshire, Pembrokeshire and Carmarthenshire
Glamorganshire, Breconshire and Radnorshire