This collection consists of a digital copy of William Hayward’s 1604 map of the Fens. William Hayward was commissioned to produce a map which would form the basis for a comprehensive drainage scheme for the peat fens south of the Wash. Hayward’s original 1604 map is now missing and Payler Smith’s 1727 copy, used for this digital redrawing, has been largely ignored, partly because of its fragile state and partly because it is based on a 1618 copy of the original 1604 map. It has been assumed that a copy of a copy of a map must inherently be unreliable but analysis shows that this is not so. Payler’s map is thus a valuable resource in studies of the development of the fens in the 17th and 18th centuries.

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