A map of Oxfordshire, with an inset map of the city of Oxford and a border made up of the coats of arms of the university colleges. At the bottom, the scale bar has been decorated with a globe and two scholars, one of whom is using a pair of compasses to measure out the scale bar.

John Speed (1552-1629) was the outstanding cartographer of his age. His ‘Theatre of Great Britain’ was the first atlas of the British Isles: Speed prepared the maps himself about two years before they were published. His maps and books dominated the seventeenth-century English market. The present map is taken from the 1627 English edition published by George Humble.