Timothy Pont – Map Maker
Born near Edinburgh around 1564/6, Timothy Pont attended St Andrews University from 1580. A few years before he began university Francis Drake set off to sail round the world. This was an era of exploration and discovery. At university it is likely that he learned the mapping techniques of the day, and graduated in 1583. In those days boys went to university at a very young age – at about fourteen or fifteen years old. This indicates that he would have been about eighteen years old at graduation.
The year after he graduated there was a serious outbreak of bubonic plague in Scotland. Two years after that Mary Queen of Scots was beheaded in England. Two years into his ministry in Dunnet and the Union of the Crowns occured, making James VI of Scotland, James I of England (1603). Timothy Pont lived in turbulent times. Five years into his ministry and Guy Fawkes and his associates were trying to blow up the Houses of Parliament in London.
The first official mapping job that is recorded as his is a mineral survey in Orkney and Shetland in 1592. His employers, the Crown via the Master of Mines were hopeful of finding silver and gold. By 1596 he is mapping Clydesdale. A year or two later he gets that call to his Caithness parish
Imagine mapping a place like Mackay Country in the early 17th century. Transport was rather challenging, Gortex had yet to be invented, biros were not an option and photocopiers would have been a madman’s dream. Even paper was an expensive commodity so how did he manage to take notes and make drawings in such a damp and breezy climate, covering so many rugged, lonely miles?
In the 19th century cartographers used chains to measure and calculate distance. In Timothy Pont’s day it was a case of walking and walking. This was a time when roads were exceedingly scarce. By this method he estimated and recorded the distances between a number of key points.
The mapper would then do a whole lot more walking to discover and record a more detailed local picture within those key points. He walked much of this ground you see described in his notes and maps. By looking at the shapes of the mountains he drew you can even retrace his steps. A mountain ridge like Ben Loyal or Ben Hope presents a different profile from south to north and west to east. Along the way he made lots of notes and sketches on squared paper.
It was these that Robert Gordon later worked up into maps which still included some of Pont’s notes and observations. From Pont’s Map 3 Robert Gordon has created Map 11 of Eddrachillis (Edera Cheules) - it says alongside the River Laxford (Avon Luz-foord)
“Salmond in plenty, and also people found”.
In the area north of Sandwood (Sandwat), Gordon has written Pont’s comment “Extream wilderness” and in smaller writing on the edge of this wilderness it states:
“Verie great plenty of wolfes doo haunt in this desert places.”[1]
On the subject of ‘Strath Navern’ Pont states:
“This cowntrey conteyneth in lenth 50 myles encluding in Etir-a Chewles [Eddrachillis] as part of it, the breadth of it is 22 myles.”[2]
He continues:
“Thir Province is devyded as followeth. First Etyr-a-Chewles seperat westward from Assn, nixt to that east therof is Durenish. More to the east followeth West-Moan then Kuntail, wherein is the lord therof dwelling called Tung. Eastward from it is that part which is cald Strath-naver therby understanding a parcel of the cowntrey not the whol. The last is Hallowdail marching with Catnes.”[3]
[1] Pont Map 11 The draught of Edera Cheules, lying betwixt Strath-Navern and Assin, gathered out of Mr Timothee Pont his papers who travailed and descryved the same. By R Gordon 1636.
[2] Pont 1 - 129v – 130 Transcription of text. National Library of Scotland website www.nls.uk - Timothy Pont’s Maps. Text largely derived from Stone. J. C. 1898 The Pont Manuscript Maps of Scotland Map Collector Ltd.
[3] as above
Etyr-a-Chewles is Eddrachillis. Durenish is of course Durness. Kintail is the old name for Kyle of Tongue. Tung is Tongue. Hallowdail is modern Halldale and Catnes is Caithness. What were these places like back in the 1600s? Pont says:
“Thir cowntrey is exceedinglie weel stored with fishes both from the sea and its own rivers, as also of deer, roe and dyvers kinds of wilde beasts, specially heir never lack wolves, more than ar expedient. It is weel stored with wood also, transporting whereof, manic are served of victual and cornis from Catnes, wherin grow abound ance of cornis but indigent of wood.”[1]
So - plenty of fish, wild beasts and trees; Caithness has a lot more corn than the Province of Strathnaver but lacks trees which it imports from Mackay Country.
To the modern eye the maps created by Pont and Robert Gordon sometimes contort the coastline or squash in some areas and stretch out others. There are mistakes but they are due to the early cartographic methods. Even so they are an astonishing record of the landscapes and communities in the early 17th century. To achieve this Pont must have spent as much time talking to local people to learn place names and suitable routes through the roughest terrain as he did actually walking and mapmaking. He must have spent many weeks and months doing this in Mackay Country at times lodging in local Inns but probably often staying with the local minister, since he was one himself. He would not have walked across every part of the ground; his discussions with local people would have furnished much of the detail.
(Map 2 a, b, c , d Pont 1 – 4 )
Pont’s maps of Mackay Country were not published for a long time. Only one of his maps – Lothian and Linlithgow – was even published in his lifetime. After his death, circa 1615, the maps were somewhat neglected until Sir John Scot of Scotstravit, a manuscript collector, Director of Chancery, Lord of Session and Privy Councillor, came upon them. He enlisted the help of Robert Gordon of Straloch in the early 1630s. Drawing on Pont’s notes Robert Gordon wrote many descriptive passages to accompany the new maps created by Joan (or Joahan) Blaeu in Amsterdam.
[1] as above