Collins (Greenville)

A New & Exact Survey of the River Dee or Chester-water,

£375

London, John Mount & Thomas Page, 1774.
from ‘Great Britain’s Coastal Pilot’, first issued in 1693, an inverted map of the Wirral peninsula with the Mersey and Dee estuaries to either side, with parts of the coast of Lancashire, Cheshire and Flintshire. The city of Chester is in the upper left corner, and the noticeably smaller city of Liverpool is lower left. A compass rose, lower centre, has north pointing below, alongside ships and rhum lines. A large decorative title cartouche is in the upper right corner, dedicated to King William III, set against a vignette with pastoral figures of ditch-diggers and a dairy maid. In the foreground a longboat rowed by crowned figures with shields, possibly represents the exile of St Mungo from Glasgow, who founded the monastery where he discovered the sanctity of his young disciple, St Asaph, after whom the monastery and settlement became named, the eponymous tiny city identified on this chart just below this scene. Finally, two putti suspend a drapery text cartouche, upper centre, describing the depth of water at spring and neap tides,.