Awarded a prize by the Royal Society of Arts, in London, for the sharpness of its engraving and its accuracy, Robert Baugh's superbly detailed map of Shropshire.

Rivers, streams, lakes, canals, woods, and parks are all depicted, with relief represented by hachures. Different types of property are illustrated pictorially, with a key in the bottom-right corner explaining the various symbols for, for example, rectories, vicarages, gentlemen's seats, farm houses, and cottages. In the top-right corner, above the dedication, is a view of the English Bridge, in Shrewsbury, designed by architect John Gwynn (a founding member of the Royal Academy, also responsible for Oxford's Magdalen Bridge), in 1774.

Robert Baugh (1748-1832) was a Welsh surveyor and engraver. Born in Llandysilio, Baugh spent his life in the Welsh-English borders, baptized and married in the church at Llanymynech, where he was also parish clerk and, according to his obituary in the 'Cambrian Quarterly Magazine', "enthusiastically accompanied [the psalmody] on the bassoon". It is for his collaboration with John Evans on Evans's monumental 1795 map of North Wales, which Baugh engraved, and for his 1808 map of Shropshire, the present example, that Baugh is best known.

It seems possible, however, that Baugh produced many more works, which no longer survive. As his obituary records: "travellers have frequently expressed surprise at the excellence of the prints and maps at the village inns of Llanymynech, and still greater when informed that they were all selected by the taste, and many etched and engraved by the ingenious talents of the parish clerk, the unassuming and merry-hearted Robert Baugh".

Scale: one inch to one mile