William Smith was the son of a Blacksmith who assisted a visiting local surveyer who had come to survey the local parish of Churchill. He so impressed his employer Edward Webb that he was taken on and later became a surveyer in his own right.

As part of his work, William noted the fossils in different works and developed the concept of a succession of strata in geology. He pursued the idea over the years and was encouraged by Sir joseph Banks to develop a geological map of England & Wales.

Work prevented him from realising the idea till, in 1812, London map engraver John Cary offered to publish Smith’s geological map of England and Wales on a scale of five miles to the inch.

Later, John Cary provided Smith with maps of thee English counties, to colour geologically. The work continued and twenty four maps of twenty one counties were published by 1824. This map is one of them.

We are now used to a colour key to identify the different geologies in a separate area of a map. In these maps, the colours are indicated by small coloured blocks down the left hand side in the map but outside of the county boundary. Seach carefuly with the magnifying glass to find them.