The Valk family firm was one of the most highly respected and enduring manufacturers of globes and maps in Europe. Gerard Valk, the family patriarch, apprenticed in London in the 1670s under the mapsellers David Loggan and Christopher Browne. Following his return to Amsterdam, in 1687, he formally established his own business.

Petrus Schenk was born in Germany but settled in Amsterdam in the ​“Globe Kaart en Konstwinkel”, where he became a pupil of the engraver Gerard Valk, whose daughter he later married.

In 1694 they acquired the plates for Johannes Janssonius’ Atlas Novus. They reissued and updated the maps using their joint names. These included the English county maps.

Note that this map shows Ermine Street.