RCB Library Notes04 Jun 08

Important Map purchased by St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin

At a recent auction of books, maps and manuscripts in Bonhams sale rooms in London, St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, was successful in securing an important manuscript map of part of the lands of the vicars choral of St Patrick’s in the eighteenth century. The records of the vicars choral have not survived and so this is an unexpected find.

The map, which is dated 23 October 1714, is a survey of a lot of ground, roughly in the vicinity of the present Harold’s Cross park. It includes drawings of Mrs Carr’s Mill and the Way Mills of Harold’s Cross. It is the work of the eminent Dublin surveyor, Gabriel Stokes, and it is believed to be his earliest signed map. Writing in Plantation acres. An historical study of the Irish land surveyor and his maps, Professor John Andrews, the doyen of Irish cartographic historians, had dated Stokes’ earliest signed map to 1716.

Gabriel Stokes was born in 1682 and attended the King’s Hospital after which he was apprenticed to Joseph Moland who became Dublin City Surveyor in 1706. He drew maps for both the Dublin cathedrals, Trinity College, and the Erasmus Smith schools and was Deputy Surveyor General of Ireland, 1748-52.

This new find will join the other archives of St Patrick’s Cathedral which are in the Representative Church Body Library, Dublin.

For further information please contact:
Dr Raymond Refaussé
Tel: + 353 (0)1 4923 979