56.3398°N / 2.7967°W · United Kingdom
Most medieval plans have been overwritten. This one has not, and you can still follow its three streets with a finger from one end to the other.
You choose the framing, the palette and the words of the caption. The work is drawn from real data, then printed to order in the workshop closest to you.
Start at the wide end and follow any of the three: they narrow together as they go, and the town narrows with them. To the north-west, a long beach runs to the mouth of a small river; between the beach and the town lies a band of open ground that no street crosses, and it holds the whole seafront. To the south-east, a shorter beach leads to a tiny harbour cut into the rock. Everything on this sheet points the same way.
Two things to know before you compose. That band along the sea will not be green: it draws as very pale open ground, crossed by fine lines, and its value is that nothing is built on it rather than any colour it carries. And the river mouth to the north-west is tidal mud, which is never drawn: the river will simply look wider there, at any hour of any tide. The cathedral and the castle leave only their open plots, since walls and ruins are not drawn at all.
The sea takes a whole corner of the sheet, and it is the only real mass: the open ground along the shore stays pale whatever you choose. So set your water and let the rest be line. The one thing worth protecting is the three streets: they are what makes this print St Andrews rather than any small coastal town, and a heavy ink around them will close the weave and blur the convergence.
Portrait, sea in the upper corner and the point aimed at it. Come closer and the three streets are finer still, but the river mouth leaves the sheet and the coast loses its whole northern half. The chosen frame keeps all four things at once, the streets, the two beaches and the river mouth, and asks the streets to give up a little sharpness for it.
The title, one line under it, the coordinates. The name of one of the three streets, a founding year, the number of a hole: that line puts back the cathedral the drawing leaves as bare ground.
Teaching began here around 1410, and the university was constituted by papal bull in 1413, the first in Scotland. It has never left the three streets: what looks on your print like an ordinary medieval weave has held a university inside it for six centuries, which is why the plan was never rebuilt.
The burgh was founded around 1140 by King David I, and the cathedral, begun under Bishop Arnold, was consecrated in 1318 in the presence of Robert Bruce. Its close is one of the two large open plots at the point of your print. The building is a ruin and the base map draws neither ruins nor walls: what you see is the ground it stood on.
By 1457 golf was troublesome enough here that the Scottish parliament banned it, wanting people to practise archery instead. The links along the shore are older than almost anything else on this map that is still used for the same purpose, and they are the reason the seafront was never built on.
Yes. The search covers the whole world, from a capital to a hamlet. For the Sky collection, any date works, past or future: the sky is calculated.
From 21 × 29.7 cm to 84.1 × 118.9 cm, that is A4 to A0, portrait or landscape depending on the material. Every size is shown with its price in the editor.
Four, from the barest to the most dressed.
Allow 1 to 4 working days for making, up to 7 for hand-assembled frames and canvases, then 1 to 6 working days in transit with standard delivery.
Digital editions are available immediately: the file of your piece is emailed to you as soon as you order.
The street you walked down to the sea, the ruin you cut through on the way, the wind on the open ground in October. The three streets are the same for everyone. The one you took is not.
Compose my St Andrews print
