A joined example of the Bucks' monumental five-sheet prospect of London

BUCK, Samuel & Nathaniel.

[Untitled prospect of London and Westminster.]
London: S. & N. Buck: c.1749. Five plates conjoined, total 305 x 9500mm, laid on linen and wooden roller, morocco cover.

Minor restoration to first sheet, backed on linen, roller and cover replaced.

An incredibly-detailed prospect of London and Westminster from the Thames, showing from Millbank in the west to the Tower of London, with an 140-point key underneath.
The first sheet, Millbank to the Treasury sketched from 'Mr Sheve's Sugar House, opposite to York House', shows the finishing touches being made to Westminster Bridge, with stonemasons at work in the bottom left corner. On the Thames in front of Millback is a ferry carrying a coach and horses, the 'Horseferry' that became obsolete when the bridge opened the following year. Westminster Abbey boasts the two towers added 1734.
The second sheet, the Treasury to Somerset House from 'Mr Watson's Summer House, opposite to Somerset House', shows one of the rare surviving pieces of riverside history, York Stairs. The Italianate watergate, built c.1626, remains in place but is now separated from the river by 150 yards of the Thames Embankment.
The third plate, Somerset House to Bridewell from 'Mr Everard's Summer-House, opposite to St Bride's Church', depicts the City Barge and ceremonial barge of the East India Company. East of Whitefriars Stairs, unsurprisingly unnamed, is 'Whitefriars Laystall', a huge heap of human dung collected from the ward of Farringdon Without, awaiting removal on less ostentatious barges.
Plate four, the Fleet to St Michael's Bassingshaw from the 'West part of the Leads of St Mary Overy's Church in Southwark', is dominated by the dome of Wren's St Paul's Cathedral. The 'Fleet Ditch' is still open, twenty years before it disappeared under Blackfriars Bridge.
The final plate, Old Street Church to Limehouse, also from St Mary Overy, details London Bridge, less than a decade before an Act of Parliament ordered the removal of the buildings that strangled it. In the far right is the Tower of London.

HYDE: A Prospect of Britain, Plates 40-44.
Stock ID : 18777