Mayson, Thomas
1875

Victorian exhibition advertisement for Mayson’s Relief Ordnance Model

DESCRIPTION: Original Victorian exhibition advertisement for Mayson’s 3D Ordnance relief model of the Lake District, Cumbria, North West England, created in 1875 as a major visitor attraction in Keswick. The broadside announces the enormous 210 square foot model exhibited daily at the Lake District Repository on Lake Road, a sculpted landscape built to a scale of six inches to the mile and rendered with exactness from Ordnance Survey data. Bold Victorian lettering, fern motifs, and a vignette of the Repository building frame the promotional text, which highlights mountains, lakes, rivers, waterfalls, villages, and roads shown in full relief and hand colored to nature.

The model was commissioned by Keswick photographer Henry Mayson and his brother Thomas and built by the Italian sculptor Raffaelle Monti and his team using Ordnance Survey sheets as the mathematical basis for every contour. The advertisement stresses its practical value for travelers, noting that the model was an essential tool for planning excursions and understanding the correct topography of the Lake District at a time when tourism was rapidly increasing. Daily opening hours, illumination during summer months, and a one shilling admission charge appear prominently in the lower text block.

As an example of nineteenth century exhibition ephemera, this poster documents one of the most ambitious public relief models ever constructed in Britain and preserves the original marketing for a landmark Lake District attraction. Surviving advertisements for Mayson’s Ordnance Model are scarce, and this sheet stands as a desirable item for collectors of British posters, Lake District history, and early Ordnance Survey derived cartography.

CREATOR: Mayson, Thomas

PUBLICATION DATE: 1875

GEOGRAPHIC AREA: United Kingdom

BODY OF WATER: English Lake District

CONDITION: Excellent. No holes or tears. Heavy stock. Wide margins.

COLORING: Chromolithograph.

ENGRAVER:

SIZE: " x "

ITEM PHYSICAL LOCATION:

PRICE: $200

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