I love this elegant 1815 #map of #Wimborne Minster, #Dorset. But it represents something of a classicising, idealising fiction - the town neatened into orderly streets and parkland. Look what happens when it's georectified... @DorsetArchives @priestshouse @VCH_London (thread)

I prefer #Wimborne's more higgledy-piggledy reality – though Hutchins’ History and Antiquities of the County of Dorset (late 18thc) reckons ‘it has little reason to boast either of the cleanliness or regularity of its streets, or the neatness and regularity of its buildings’…

Interestingly, one of the books in #Wimborne Minster’s chained library is Stephen Primatt’s The City and Country Purchaser and Builder’ (London, 1667 ). So, evidently some local interest in practices of town planning, architecture etc.

In some ways, #Wimborne Minster was ‘unlucky’ – unlikely nearby #Blandford or #Wareham (or #London), it had no big #fire as an impetus to new planning, design & rebuilding. But lucky for us today!