The map was the first large-scale map (at one inch to the mile) of the whole county and shows the landscape just prior to Parliamentary Enclosure of the early 19th century. Surveyed between 1790 and 1794 the map was published in 1797 in London by William Faden, Geographer to His Majesty. Within 15 years of the map’s publication the extensive commons, heaths and warrens had largely disappeared.