The publishers of the Pocket Topography, deemed it more convenient for travellers, to prevent the necessity of taking both volumes with them on a journey, to divide the Kingdom into nearly equal portions, and to place the Northern and Midland Counties in one Volume; and the Southern, South-eastern, and South-western in the other. This first Volume contains the Southern portions of the Kingdom, each County being placed alphabetically.
The plan developed in the prospectus has been rigidly adhered to, except that it has been deemed expedient to publish the first Volume some time in advance of the second, instead of, as it was originally intended, completing the two simultaneously.
The topographical descriptions, from the circumscribed limits of the work, are necessarily confined to the chief Towns and Villages, but every Parish, Township, Chapelry, Village and Hamlet, is named in the Tabular Lists at the end of the County, with its population appended, and a numerical reference to the Parish of which it forms an integral part. A previous table exhibits a List of all the Market and Fair Towns, with the distance from London and the principal Town in the County, the market days, fairs and population: an alphabetical list of the Parishes follows this table. These tables, in conjunction with the topographical portion, furnish all the information in a portable form, that can be found in far more expensive and cumbrous gazetteers.
The Maps are engraved from the very latest and best surveys, and exhibit distinctly and faithfully, every Town, Travelled Road, Canal and Railway line, that is laid down upon more costly and larger maps.
Pigot's Commercial Directory of Northern England: Chester, Cumberland, Durham, Lancaster, Northumberland, Westmoreland, and York
Messrs. PIGOT & Co., in placing the present publication in the hands of the subscribers to it, beg to record their grateful sense of the support they have been honoured with, in so liberal a manner; and which, upon so many previous occasions, has accompanied, stimulated, and rewarded their exertions.
The rapid and untiring step of science and manufactures has, within a comparatively short period, called into existence numerous places that previously were deemed, by the man of commerce, too insignificant to visit. Wild and unpeopled districts have become the site of large factories, and important trading establishments, dispensing employment to an industrious population - villages of a rude and scattered character have been transformed into compact towns; while the means of passing from place to place, over hitherto untrodden tracts, have been effected by all the methods of modern and improved communication. It was in such situations that the Proprietors experienced, in the progress of their work, a new and continued demand upon their industry, and a wide field spread out before them.
The various materials composing this volume are arranged uniformly upon the same principle as that which has been adopted in Messrs. P. & Co.'s Directories; at the same time, every improvement that their long experience could suggest has been eagerly seized upon, and gladly applied.
In the historical and descriptive sketches of the several towns, &c. plain matter of fact, connected with the commercial interest, has been given; vague assumptions and fallacious statements have invariably been discarded, and, in their place, substituted, subjects of interest, which are briefly, but faithfully, narrated. In this department, the proprietors, as upon previous occasions, have thankfully to acknowledge the prompt and valuable assistance afforded to them, from many talented gentlemen, in furnishing to their Agents information, upon various subjects, from scarce documents, never before published, in connexion with the various places - and, which those, who have so obligingly interested themselves, will perceive has been made use of.
The Proprietors do not presume to indulge the hope, that a work like this composed of such various materials, and extending through such a number of pages, can possibly come before the public free from inaccuracies; - all they can urge in extenuation of errors, and to soften down (if not disarm) criticism is, - that they have watched over its progress with the most unflinching anxiety, and that no pecuniary consideration has deterred them, nor any effort been withheld, to effect the attainment of objects whereby the intrinsic value of the work might be augmented, and render its approach more near towards perfection. If, after the adoption of such appliances, faults are occasionally detected, they have only to hope that some indulgence may be conceded to them, upon the score of the intricate and arduous character belonging to this description of literary labour.