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De Gomme, Bernard, 1620-1685, The bounds of the fortificatie of Gosport, approximately 1678
- Title(s):
- The bounds of the fortificatie of Gosport.
- Additional Title(s):
- Town of Gosport
- Published/Created:
- Gosport?, approximately 1678.
- Physical Description:
- 1 map : pen-and-ink and watercolor ; 74 x 93 cm
- Holdings:
- Rare Books and ManuscriptsOctavo Room \ De GommeYale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon CollectionView by request in the Study Room [Request]
Note: The Study Room is open by appointment. Please visit the Study Room page on our website for more details. - Copyright Status:
- Copyright Information
- Full Orbis Record:
- http://hdl.handle.net/10079/bibid/12220325
- Classification:
- Maps & Atlases (manuscript)
- Scale:
- Scale appoximately 1:1,250
- Notes:
- "Scale of six hundred English feete."
Provenance: From the collection of George Legge, first Baron Dartmouth, 1648-1691 (see Sotheby's sale, March 8-10, 1948). Baron Dartmouth was Master-General of the Ordnance to Charles II and James II. His collection of maps was partly abstracted from Royal map collections, an arrangement described by Pepys in Bodleian Library MS Rawl. A. 171, 17r-20v. See also Skelton and Wallis. The map is numbered "v1.7.b" in the Dartmouth collection.
Selected exhibitions: "The Mapmaker's art: 300 years of British cartography" (Yale Center for British Art, January 17-March 12, 1989).
Saunders, A. Fortress builder, 149
Skelton, R. "The Royal map collections of England." In Imago mundi, vol. 13 (1956), p. 181-183
Wallis, H. "The Royal map collections of England." In Revista da Universidade de Coimbra, vol. XXVIII (1980), p. 466-467
Manuscript plan of the town of Gosport, England, with proposed fortifications as conceived by Bernard de Gomme. The plan is unsigned and the drawing may have been a collaboration of De Gomme and his assistant Thomas Phillips. The plan is item 149 in Andrews Saunders' Fortress builder: Bernard de Gomme, Charles II's military engineer (Exeter, 2004). Saunders notes: "Ca. 1678 ... A fine presentation piece. The streets and houses shown in great detail and clarity. An earlier version of 142 [PCL 7328 3/41, Dartmouth Coll., map 6]. The northern end of the bastioned line lacking the two-tier flanker and the eastern trace shown incomplete. The redoubt at the landing place is complete."
The plan bears a close resemblance to Saunders item no. 142 (PCL 7328 3/41, Dartmouth Coll., map 6), of which he notes: "Though the fortifications are in de Gomme's hand, the depiction of the town is more likely to be the work of someone else--the assistant, Thomas Phillips, perhaps. The defences are shown in a formative state ... The land-front is presented in its proposed form with tenailles in front of the curtains. There are the intended two ravelins in the ditch, which is closed by batardeaux, and there is a detached demi-lune to the south of the outer ditch ... Along the seaward side, there is an irregular line with demi-bastions to the east, and with base-flanks to the west ... A further indication of the date is that the Great Redoubt (Charles Fort) is now shown as under construction" (p. 150).
"A plan of the Gosport Lines of 1716 indicates that the works had not progressed to meet the intentions of 1679. The bastion and demi-bastions of the land-front were complete, but the ditch had not been widened. The southern, seaward, side was complete with an irregular stepped trace but with a revetted demi-bastion at the eastern angle. This situation remained until 1748 when the Gosport Lines were remodelled, more or less in the form recommended earlier by de Gomme, except that they were extended to the north and ultimately across the peninsula. The modified Southern end still survives."--Saunders, p. 151. - Subject Terms:
- Bastions -- Great Britain.Fortification -- Great Britain.Gosport (England) -- Buildings, structures, etc.Gosport (England) -- Maps.Great Britain -- Defenses.Great Britain -- History, Military -- 1603-1714.
- Form/Genre:
- Maps -- England -- Gosport.
Views -- England -- Gosport.
Ink drawings.
Watercolors. - Export:
- XML
- IIIF Manifest:
- JSON
The Mapmaker's Art: 300 Years of British Cartography (Yale Center for British Art, January 17, 1989-March 12, 1989) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]
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