Add MS 71602

BLENHEIM PALACE. 'A reduced plan of Blenheim Park, gardens and plantations adjoining in Oxfordshire. belonging to his Grace the Duke of Marlborough. Made in June 1771 by Thomas Richardson, Surveyor in Little Queen Ann Street Cavendish Square London.' 'Scale of forty chains or half a mile'. Scale bar of 40 [chains] = 141mm. 1:5760. Oriented with WSW at the top. The plan gives a detailed layout of the grounds, including the alterations made by Capability Brown, who was working at Blenheim at the time the plan was drawn. Individual trees are drawn in perspective, each with its own shadow. The house itself is shown in plan with few details. Tables in the upper and lower left-hand corners, the ink badly faded and almost illegible, provide a key to the plan and give details of acreages. Thomas Richardson (b.1762, d.1802?) is listed in P. Eden (ed.), Dictionary of land surveyors and local cartographers of Great Britain and Ireland 1550-1850, (1975-1979), as active in the midland and southern counties of England. The Map Library has other examples of his surveys. The archive of the Dukes of Marlborough, formerly at Blenheim Palace, is now Add. 61101-61710 in the British Library. For bills of Thomas Richardson for earlier surveys of the Marlborough estates, see Add. ff. 49-51v. The plan was in France by 1793; a note at the foot of the plan states 'Ce plan est un débris des richesses du chateau de la Brèteche ruiné en 1793 par ordre du Comité du Salut Public'. Purchased from Christies, 24 May 1995 (lot 64).

Ink and coloured wash (green) on vellum; 540 x 840mm. on sheet 570 x 870mm. Margins damaged by rust and nail-holes, probably from an old frame.