Cox Heath, 1756

A PLAN / of COCK’s HEATH and the adjacent Parts in / the County of KENT 42 Englisch Miles from / LONDON and 4 Miles from MAIDSTONE / with the CAMP / consisting of 12 Battalions of His MAJESTY’S / German Troops under the...

A plan of the encampment of Hanoverian forces, under the command of General Sommerfeldt, on Coxheath, July-November 1756. Seven Years War (1756-63). Oriented with south-west to top (compass rose).

The old catalogue entry gives the dates of the camp as 12 July-4 August. These dates are taken from the text on the map which gives only the arrival dates for the battalions. The map at RCIN 731068.e gives the terminal date as 3 November.

In 1756, faced with the threat of imminent invasion from France, Britain had few forces to defend the invasion coasts of southern England. The Elector of Hanover (George II) agreed to send thirteen battalions to England, and the Landgraf of Hesse-Kassel (William VIII, 1682-1760, Landgraf 1751-60) sent eight battalions.

The thirteen Hanoverian battalions shown on this plan are 1st and 2nd battalion Guards, Oberg, Hodenberg, Harenberg, Wangenheim, Zastrow, Fabrice, Diepenbroick, Haus, Kielmansegge, Spöercken, Artillery.

The cartography is in a typical German hand. Six categories of land use appear to be represented: woodlands, orchard, pasture land, arable, hop growing(?) (perhaps indicated by the brown fields with regularly spaced dots), heathland. This map appears to be another copy of RCIN 731082 (or vice versa) but there are small diferences in detail. For example, the busy route network across the heath is depicted slightly differently, with the edges to the highways being clearly indicated, in contrast to the other map where the same feature is shown as a road, thus givng the appearance of twice as many roads as may have existed. Footpaths elsewhere which are represented by single dashed lines. This map shows much greater topographical detail than Daniel Paterson's map of this encampment which was drawn in the 1780s (RCIN 731068.e).

Additional text: [top right, in English and French, a key, A,B, to the identification of the Right and Left Wings.] [Bottom left, in a rectangular panel, in English, a list of the encamped regiments and a key, C-H to the owners of the prominent houses around the heath:] Explanation [bottom right, the same list of the encamped regiments and property owners in French with their dates of entering the camp:] Entrée au Camp [and] Explication.

Condition: three fold lines; 2.7 cm tear to bottom centre fold line; paper brittle and lacking pieces from bottom right and right edges; brown discolouration from old paste along the joins of the sheets. Verso: induced discolouration, brown staining, surface dirt.