James Edwards’s Companion from London to Brighthelmston (1789-1801)

James Edwards, a surveyor, set out to measure the distances from London to various destinations along the roads leading to the new seaside resort of Brighton. After publishing a table of distances between any two out of a list of 100 villages in East Surrey in 1797, he went on to produce in 1801 a series of maps together with descriptions of the properties to be found along each route. He used an orientation that seems strange nowadays, with east at the top, rather than north.

The extracts digitised here were taken from photocopies found among the papers of the late Eric Montague, the Mitcham historian. There was no indication of where he found the original publication. The quality of the photocopies is not sufficient to allow optical character recognition, but it is hoped that they will nevertheless prove of interest.

Local extracts from James Edwards’s Companion from London to Brighthelmston