At a glance
Surprise: Renaissance London was not a uniform black‑and‑white village of low cottages. It is a dense, vertical, and often brightly coloured metropolis—tightly packed multi‑storey timber and brick houses with projecting upper floors, bustling market streets, and a heavily worked Thames crowded with wharves and boats.
Sources
primary
- John Stow, The Survey of London (1598/1603) — description of Cheapside and the Great Conduit.Link
- Civitas Londinum (the 'Agas' map), c.1561 — bird's‑eye plan showing street layout and Cheapside placement.Link
- Braun & Hogenberg, Civitates orbis terrarum (London view, 1572) — printed bird's‑eye view of rooflines and street blocks.Link
modern
- Map of Early Modern London (MoEML) — compiled digital research resource synthesizing period descriptions and maps.Link
- Historic England — technical descriptions of surviving timber construction and paintwork on early buildings.Link
- "Chameleon‑like England" — scholarship on polychromy in early‑modern buildings and public monuments.Link
- L.A.M.A.S. / Museum of London studies on the Cheapside Hoard and local commerce — illustrating the kinds of luxury goods sold around Cheapside.Link