coast line
Saxton's Hampshire 1575
The county of Hampshire is bounded on the south by the sea. This boundary does not change much with changes of local or national politics! but it is subject to change by nature. Rivers, the sea, and winds change the shape of the land; sometimes slowly, sometimes suddenly and dramatically.
If the coast shown by Saxton's map is studied closely and compared with earlier and later mapping you can see differences; some are easy to spot. But, bear in mind the questions how accurate was the cartographer of each map, just what line was being plotted as the coast, how good was the surveying? Don't jump to conclusions too rapidly.
If the mapped coastlines are to be compared it might be helpful to lay them over each other. You might make each coastline conform to a common grid calculated for each map from data points over the whole county (this is the process used for other comparisons in this project). Or, you might calculate a common underlying structure just from recognizable fixed points along the coast: castles don't move, towns centres might shift a little, ... Do allow for gross as well as slight errors in the map maker's plotting.
