I’m an absolute sucker for an antique map. Those things are works of art, and you wonder, in an age well before human flight, how the cartographer managed such detail. Have a google of rare map dealers – here’s one – a lot of antique maps aren’t even that expensive, given their age and rarity. Honestly, the number of times I so nearly hit BUY while researching The Pepys Mysteries is terrifying.

This featured map of “Huntingtonshire” – later Huntingdonshire, after which it became swallowed up by the neighbouring counties – is not one I actually used during my research, but it perfectly illustrates my theme: that old maps are brilliant!

It would have served my purpose, as I was interested in the route north from London (which Sam’s inquisitors, Abby Harcourt and Jacob Standish, take), west from Cambridge (which the witchfinder, Simon Hopkins, takes) and then the walk from Brampton (where Sam’s sister, Paulina, is accused of witchcraft) into Huntingdon.

Brampton’s there, in the left corner, with Hinchingbroke – the local landowner’s estate, which features in The Brampton Witch Murders, fictionalised as Ravenscourt – just north, and then Huntingdon itself.

Pepys attended Grammar School there, as did Oliver Cromwell, so for a smallish town it packs a historical punch. It was also on the main stagecoach route north, via the old Great North Road, so saw plenty of 17th century traffic.

That walk into Huntingdon – two feet being the most common mode of travel in 17th century England – was of particular interest to me, as I wished to describe Abby and Jacob’s arrival as realistically as possible, so I was delighted to discover today’s rabbit-hole link, which includes a 1662 map of the town.

Read your copy of The Brampton Witch Murders – purchase links on my homepage – and you’ll see that Jacob has to be dragged away from the ‘Bouling Place’ on the outskirts. Which I knew existed thanks to that map.

Maps – gotta love ’em!