The Southwest Prospect of the City of Durham.

A delightful copperplate engraving of the city of Durham, published in 1745 in London by Samuel and Nathaniel Buck. It shows the ancient city perched high on a hill, overlooking the River Were, and the lovely surrounding English countryside. The only access to the city is over the bridge, as seen at the left of the moat.
Monks founded Durham from nearby Lindisfarne in the last years of the tenth century. Until the untimely martyrdom of Thomas a Beckett in Canterbury Cathedral, Durham Cathedral was the most important religious site in Britain. The centuries-old cathedral rightly dominates the city.
Behind it, we can glimpse at the impressive Bishop’s Palace. 14 such important places in the city are featured in a key at the right bottom. In addition, there is a historical write-up of Durham at the bottom and featuring the city's coat of arms. This print was purchased in the past from A.H. Butt, Fine Art Dealer, in Bournemouth.

This is a print that displays a significant and strategic town that has had an enormous part to play within English history. This panoramic copper engraving is one of the finest by the Buck Brothers and probably the finest ever executed of the city of Durham. This print is currently for sale on the Internet (The only other copy available at this time) for over $5,500.
Samuel (1696-1790) and Nathaniel (1703-1759) Buck were brothers who were born in Yorkshire, England. In about 1724, they moved south to London and set out and began an ambitious work to traverse every county within England and Wales.
They began to engrave and prepare the particular county’s antiquities, be they freestanding or semi ruinous castles, stately homes, or religious and monastic buildings of importance and consequence. However, many were in a deplorable state of neglect and abject disrepair after King Henry VIII in the 16th century. Then Oliver Cromwell later in the 17th century had their respective religious purges.
During the preparation of these collections of county antiquities, the Buck brothers struck on the novel idea to engrave some of the more important cities and towns. This resulted in the most wondrous, most influential, and most important topographical undertaking that was ever done of England and Wales, not only of the 18th century but also for many years afterward.
Before Buck’s magnificent copper plate panoramas, virtually nothing had been done to depict views of significant English cities and towns.