Notes: | This large map includes the southern coast of the Moray Firth from Inverness in the west to Duffus castle, just east of Burghead, in the east. It extends inland as far as Loch Ness and the head of the River Findhorn in the west and the head of the River Lossie in the east. - There are clear sketches of townscapes for Inverness, Forres and Nairn. Most of the castles are also carefully depicted, some with characteristic walled gardens or enclosed parks, such as Brodie Castle and Tarnwa (Darnaway) Castle, south west of Forres.
- Just north of Forres, Pont has depicted two standing stones with his usual symbols. One of these is probably Sueno's Stone, an elaborately sculpted Pictish cross-slab, 6.5m high, carved after the union of the Picts and Scots in the 9th century.
- The overwriting and some of the trees and hill shading may be the later work of Robert Gordon. Below Loch Ness is a note by Gordon which reads:
- Tuixt Holome and
Nardins Heid T. Pont reckons by his scale 26 myles - By Nardins Heid Gordon means the head of the River Nairn, and Hoome (Holme) is a settlement on the banks of the river further west.
- Just off the coast at Nairn, Pont has drawn the Ruins of the old cast:[le]. As late as 1794 it was related that some people 'remember to have seen some vestiges of the foundation' at spring tides.
- The castle established along with the burgh of Invernairn by King William the Lion in the late 12th century is believed to be represented by Constabulary Gardens, on the west bank of the river in the position where Pont shows a fortification.
- Pont 5 overlaps part of the west of this sheet, and Pont 23 includes an area at the east end.
- Gordon's manuscript maps of this area, or parts of it, add little new information, but see sheets 2, 4, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, and 26.» Pont 8 was the principal source used by Robert Gordon to draft the map of Moravia for Blaeu's Atlas Novus (1654).
View the Pont Maps website. View maps by Blaeu and Robert and James Gordon. |