Down Survey

Down Survey. The end of the Confederate War was followed by confiscations of land affecting nearly half the country. In 1654 Dr William Petty, physician‐in‐chief to the Cromwellian army, was made responsible for mapping all the forfeited land previously identified by the Civil Survey, other than in the western countries already covered by the Strafford inquisitions of 1636. The survey is notable not only for the sheer magnitude of the undertaking but also for the methods of recruitment, training, organization, and remuneration of the surveyors which allowed the work to be completed within five years. It was known as the ‘Down Survey’ almost from the beginning because it was set down on maps and not just in tabulated form as in some earlier surveys. Drawn by parishes, the maps were more accurate than anything previously attempted, though detail was confined to boundaries, names, acreages, and land quality, which was also recorded in accompanying written descriptions.

In 1685 Petty worked up the results into the first printed atlas of Irish provinces and counties, Hiberniae delineatio, though the many blank areas on its maps betray the vast unforfeited lands omitted from the original survey. Its outline appeared in most of the general maps of Ireland published between c.1690 and the advent of the Ordnance Survey.

Paul Ferguson