{"product_id":"old-pictorial-map-of-perth-scotland-by-rapkin-1851-river-tay-north-inch-south-inch-high-street-tay-street","title":"Old Map of Perth, Scotland by Rapkin, 1851: River Tay, North Inch, South Inch, High Street, Tay Street","description":"\u003cp\u003eTitled simply “Perth,” this 1851 town plan by J. Rapkin for John Tallis \u0026amp; Company distills the Fair City at a moment of confident mid-Victorian poise. It is a classic Tallis synthesis: a crisply engraved street plan encircled by elegant lettering and decorative cartouches, enlivened by pictorial views of the surrounding landscape. The River Tay—Scotland’s longest—anchors the composition, its broad sweep defining the city’s lineaments and commerce. As a city map, it is especially compelling for how it blends utility with romance: practical annotations of thoroughfares and key buildings paired with vignettes that stage Perth against its hills and water-meadows. The result is both a guide to movement and a portrait of civic identity shaped by river, bridge, and green.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAt street level, the plan captures the city’s classic spine-and-river arrangement. High Street—articulated as East High Street and West High Street—runs true as Perth’s mercantile corridor, intersected by Mill Street and Market Street and fed by North Street and South Street. Tay Street tracks the waterfront’s working edge, while Canal Street, Castle Street, and Miln Street compass the dense core. Beyond the historic center, Leonard Street and Wilson Street express orderly expansion, and approaches like Craigie Road and Letham Street signal growing suburban reach. The engraver’s deft labeling of notable buildings gives the urban fabric depth: civic halls, ecclesiastical towers, and commercial houses form a cadence of landmarks that orient the eye and narrate the city’s public life.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGreen space is Perth’s signature flourish, and the map sets it off with clarity and grace. The North Inch and South Inch—broad, level meadows long cherished as communal grounds—bookend the urban front along the Tay, their openness dramatizing the river’s breadth and the town’s restraint. Notchty Island punctuates the stream, a mid-channel accent that helps explain the Tay’s braided flow at Perth. Together, the Inches and river read as both amenity and infrastructure: places of recreation, parade, and pasture that also double as natural floodplain and civic stage. The careful plotting of Tay Street opposite these greenswards hints at a proto-promenade sensibility, where trade, travel, and leisure coexisted at the water’s edge.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRapkin’s composition sets the town against its hinterland with rare pictorial tact. The illustrated landscapes present soft horizons and wooded slopes that frame the city without overwhelming it, underscoring Perth’s role as gateway between Lowlands and Highlands. Outlying names—Cherrybank to the west, Tullybelton Road striking north—trace the city’s ties to estates, farms, and upland routes. College Place and Craigie Road suggest scholastic and residential precincts budding beyond the medieval core, while Castle Street preserves a memory of fortified authority within a modernizing grid. The effect is of a place in balanced transition: old burghal textures giving way to planned avenues, yet still reading as one coherent organism shaped by river, meadow, and trade.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Tallis-Rapkin partnership is itself part of the map’s allure. John Tallis \u0026amp; Company, publishing from London and New York, perfected the mid-19th-century art-map: engraved plans precise enough for the traveller, but ornamented—through cartouches, borders, and vignettes—to satisfy the collector. Rapkin’s hallmark is evident in the legibility of every line and the measured hierarchy of type, a town plan arranged with almost gazetteer-like clarity. In Perth, their method achieves something especially notable for a city map: it balances topographic fidelity with a painterly sense of place. You see not only where streets and buildings stand, but why the city stands here—and how river, greensward, and road have conspired to make it thrive.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eStreets and roads on this map\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eCanal Street\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eCastle Street\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eCherrybank\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eCollege Place\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eCraigie Road\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eEast High Street\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eHigh Street\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eHight Street\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eLetham Street\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eLeonard Street\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eMarket Street\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eMiln Street\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eMill Street\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eNorth Street\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eNorth Inch\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eSouth Inch\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eSouth Street\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eTay Street\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eTullybelton Road\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eWest High Street\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eWilson Street\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNotable Features \u0026amp; Landmarks\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eImage of the River Tay\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eIllustrations of nearby landscapes\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eLocations of notable buildings\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eNorthern and Southern Inches\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eNotchty Island\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHistorical and design context\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eCreated in 1851 by Tallis \u0026amp; Rapkin; published by John Tallis \u0026amp; Company (London \u0026amp; New York).\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eCombines engraved mapping with lithographed images; features ornate lettering and decorative cartouches typical of the era.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eHand-colored with outline coloring.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eRapkin’s town plans often carry estimated dates.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eIssued with a complete Index\/Gazetteer, bound in a separate volume from the maps.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eReflects a mid-19th-century trend that treated cartography as both utilitarian and decorative (fine art).\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\u003cp\u003ePlease double check the images to make sure that a specific town or place is shown on this map. You can also get in touch and ask us to check the map for you.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis map looks great at every size, but I always recommend going for a larger size if you have space. That way you can easily make out all of the details. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis map looks amazing at sizes all the way up to 50in (125cm). If you are looking for a larger map, please \u003ca href=\"\/pages\/contact-us\"\u003eget in touch\u003c\/a\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e  \u003cp\u003eThe model in the listing images is holding the 18x24in (45x60cm) version of this map.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe fifth listing image shows an example of my map personalisation service.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIf you’re looking for something slightly different, check out my collection of the \u003ca href=\"\/collections\/all-old-vintage-antique-maps\"\u003ebest old maps\u003c\/a\u003e to see if something else catches your eye.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePlease \u003ca href=\"\/pages\/contact-us\"\u003econtact me\u003c\/a\u003e to check if a certain location, landmark or feature is shown on this map.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis would make a wonderful birthday, Christmas, Father's Day, work leaving, anniversary or housewarming gift for someone from the areas covered by this map.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis map is available as a giclée print on acid free archival matte paper, or you can buy it framed. The frame is a nice, simple black frame that suits most aesthetics. Please get in touch if you'd like a different frame colour or material. My frames are glazed with super-clear museum-grade acrylic (perspex\/acrylite), which is significantly less reflective than glass, safer, and will always arrive in perfect condition.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"The Unique Maps Co.","offers":[{"title":"12x16in (30x40cm) \/ Map","offer_id":58033156227456,"sku":"UM00276848A","price":75.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true},{"title":"12x16in (30x40cm) \/ Framed map","offer_id":58033156260224,"sku":"UM00276849A","price":202.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true},{"title":"12x16in (30x40cm) \/ Framed canvas map","offer_id":58033156292992,"sku":"UM00276850A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true},{"title":"A3 (297x420mm) \/ Map","offer_id":58033156325760,"sku":"UM00276851A","price":75.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true},{"title":"A3 (297x420mm) \/ Framed map","offer_id":58033156358528,"sku":"UM00276852A","price":202.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true},{"title":"A3 (297x420mm) \/ Framed canvas 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