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The brothers Christopher and John Greenwood were surveyors from Yorkshire. In the early 19th century Christopher embarked on a project to produce large scale maps of all the counties of England and Wales from original survey, starting with his native Yorkshire in about 1815. The map of Yorkshire on nine sheets at a scale of ¾ of an inch to a mile was published in 1818, in which year he opened an office in London to continue his work in the rest of the country. In 1822 Christopher was joined by his brother John and together they continued to work on the project until John returned to Yorkshire sometime before 1838.

Apart from Yorkshire and Middlesex (published at two inches to a mile) most of the counties of England were published at a scale of one inch to a mile, the same as the first Ordnance Survey maps. The counties of Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, Herefordshire, Hertfordshire, Norfolk and Oxfordshire were never published. The Greenwoods were probably the last private surveyors to attempt such a feat as after this period the OS map made such endeavours commercially unviable.

The only Welsh county published at one inch to a mile was Monmouthshire, the other Welsh counties were grouped together in court circuits and covered by four maps at the same scale as the map of Yorkshire. However, only the map of the South-east Circuit, covering Glamorgan, Breconshire and Radnorshire appears to have been published.

Between 1828 and 1834 the Greenwoods published a reduced scale version of their maps at approximately 3 miles to the inch, which was published as an atlas in four parts. This atlas included the previously unpublished maps, including the other three Welsh circuit maps.

The links below give access to examples of the two large-scale maps published (Monmouthshire and the South-East Circuit) as well as the five smaller scale maps produced for the atlas. In addition to the maps there is a copy of a prospectus produced by the Greenwoods seeking financial backing for their publications.