I make no apologies for featuring another antique map, because I adore the things. This one, I used A LOT, in the writing of The Plague Doctor Murders – preorder your copy now – sorry, NOW – using the link in my bio, as it’s out at the end of the month.

So this map was owned by the other great diarist of Pepys’s era, John Evelyn, who lived at Sayes Court, a manor house with ornamental gardens, in Deptford, within the dockyard complex where my historical cozy mystery is set. It’s an actual glimpse into what the area looked like around the time of Pepys. Evelyn himself annotated the map – that’s his handwriting you can see (and, boy, did I pore over it, trying to make out his scrawl).

Most notable there, in the bottom left corner, are the King’s Shipyard and the Tudor-era Great Storehouse, which feature heavily in the Plague Doctor Murders.

Evelyn lived at Sayes Court from 1652-1694. He clearly visited afterwards, since there’s record of his anger at the antics of the Russian Tsar, Peter the Great, who stayed there in 1698. Evidently, a party of Russians – we can assume drink was involved – trashed a holly hedge by ramming Peter through it in a wheelbarrow.