Surveying is the science of measuring and mapping land, determining distances, angles, heights and boundaries. In the antiques world the term covers the historic instruments made for the purpose, which are collected for their precision engineering, fine brasswork and their connection with estate mapping, canal and railway building and the development of modern cartography.
Key instruments include the surveyor's chain introduced by Edmund Gunter in the early seventeenth century, the circumferentor or surveying compass, the plane table, the theodolite for measuring horizontal and vertical angles, the level for establishing heights, and the waywiser, a wheel for measuring distance along roads. English makers became leaders in the field during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and instruments by firms such as Troughton & Simms, Cary and W. F. Stanley are well regarded. Many were supplied in fitted mahogany cases with accessories and tripods. Collectors value original lacquer, signed scales, complete cases and working optics, and early instruments of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are particularly scarce. Surveying instruments also make striking display pieces in studies and libraries, alongside maps, globes and estate plans.
