Pont <36> (back) : Linlithgow and part of West Lothian. Additional text
- This is a difficult map to read owing to the large amount of text over-writing. For a detailed description and analysis of this sheet, including transcriptions and translations of much of the text, see Stone (1983).
- There is a much greater inconsistency in the use of symbols to represent and locate settlements than is usual on Pont's maps. As Dr Jeffrey Stone has written: 'This is perhaps the most difficult of Pont's maps to interpret and may have been one of his earliest, compiled before experience led to greater consistency in the use of symbols' (Stone, 1989).
- About 120 places are located on this map, most of which refer to settlements.
- Note in particular the very clear and detailed depiction of the royal palace, loch and park of the ancient royal burgh of Linlithgow (centre). The palace building seen by Pont dated from 1425. It has been described recently as 'one of the most magnificent and visible of Scotland's ancient monuments' (Keay, 1994).
- There is a 'rudimentary' key to some of the symbols used on Pont's maps in the top left corner of the sheet.
- There is a small overlap between this map and Pont 32 in the west of the area.
- The following manuscript maps by Robert Gordon include at least part of this area: 2, 6, 48, 49, 50, and 53.
- This area is included on Joan Blaeu's printed map Lothian & Linlitquo (1654). Two other Blaeu maps overlap small areas of Pont <36> verso: Sterlinensis and Fifae Vicecomitatus.
- See also: A New Description of the Shyres Lothian and Linlitquo. Be T. Pont, a map found in the French and Latin editions of the Mercator-Hondius Atlas (1630). In fact, Hondius had engraved this plate by 1612.
the National Library of Scotland's Digital Library.