Rare Old Map of Prayagraj (Allahabad) by Bartholomew, 1893: Fort, Sangam, Civil Lines, Cantonments, Railways
Restored in our London workshop from the original 1893 map and printed to museum-grade archival standards. Full description
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Choose two eligible works and receive 20% off both. Choose three and the lowest-priced one is complimentary, a maximum saving of 33%.
Mix and match eligible standard maps and fine-art prints. No code is required; the offer is applied automatically at checkout.
Standard made-to-order configurations are included. Bespoke sizes, personalised designs and commissioned work are excluded.
Need delivery to different addresses? Contact us before ordering.The Collector’s Offer
Choose two eligible works and receive 20% off both. Choose three and the lowest-priced one is complimentary, a maximum saving of 33%.
Mix and match eligible standard maps and fine-art prints. No code is required; the offer is applied automatically at checkout.
Standard made-to-order configurations are included. Bespoke sizes, personalised designs and commissioned work are excluded.
Need delivery to different addresses? Contact us before ordering.
Restored from the original 1893 map and printed to museum-grade archival standards. Full description
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Gift message & custom finish
If you want to add a gift message, or a finish (jigsaw, aluminium board, etc.) that is not available here, please request it in the "order note" when you check out.
Every order is custom made, so if you need the size adjusted slightly, or printed on an unusual material, just let us know. We've done thousands of custom orders over the years, so there's (almost) nothing we can't manage.
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Allahabad and Environs (Plate 44) captures the late-nineteenth-century capital at the storied junction of the Ganges and Jumna, rendered with the lucid...
Continue readingAllahabad and Environs (Plate 44) captures the late-nineteenth-century capital at the storied junction of the Ganges and Jumna, rendered with the lucid precision of John George Bartholomew and issued by Archibald Constable & Company in 1893. As a city map, it is unusually revealing: the Mughal-era Allahabad Fort anchors the riverfront while a modern lattice of roads, railways, bridges, and canals radiates from the confluence, articulating a metropolis where pilgrimage, bureaucracy, and commerce overlap. Part of Constable’s Hand Atlas of India, the plate balances topographic nuance with urban legibility—pinpointing public buildings, parks, and river landings—so that neighborhoods, bazaars, and the planned colonial quarters can be read as a single living geography. The result is a compelling portrait of an Indian city at a pivotal moment of imperial and civic transformation.
The plate’s urban anatomy unfolds street by street. Walled City Road and Kydganj Road delineate the dense historic quarters near the ghats, where markets spill into lanes like Sadar Bazar Road and Daryaganj Road. Westward, a rational grid announces itself through Civil Lines Road, Victoria Road, Bank Road, and Elgin Road, tracing the planned order of the colonial administration. Company Bagh Road leads into broad green, a landscaped park counterpoint to the bustling chowks. Arterial thoroughfares—Beli Road, Parade Road, and Allenby Road—tie these districts to the broader road network, while Ameenabad, Ganeshganj, and Paharganj Roads sketch the residential suburbs advancing beyond the old ramparts. The juxtaposition of intimate neighborhoods with broad avenues and civic greens is precisely what makes this an especially interesting city map.
Bartholomew gives the rivers a starring role, mapping the Ganges and Jumna with careful attention to banks, islands, and the seasonal drama of monsoon water. Areas marked as “land inundated during rains” disclose the city’s hydrological logic, revealing floodplain margins that shaped settlement, road alignments, and the positioning of public works. Railway lines and river bridges stitch the banks into a single urban field, with East Track Road shadowing the iron way and confirming Allahabad’s emergence as a rail hub linking the North-Western Provinces to broader markets. Canals and embankments curve along the low ground, while river landings and ferry points speak to the enduring vitality of river trade and pilgrimage traffic at the Sangam. It is a hydroscape rendered as infrastructure, belief, and economy all at once.
Military geography is foregrounded with rare candor: cantonments are tinted in yellow, and their internal order—Parade Road, Sadar Bazar Road, New Cantonment Road, and Strategic Road—reads like a manual of garrison planning. The spatial relationship between these cantonments, the Fort, and the trunk roads explains how the city was secured after 1857 and how troops, mail, and commodities flowed between depots, railheads, and river crossings. The yellow washes also make plain the duality of Allahabad—administrative seat, legal center, and rail nexus on one hand; fortified node commanding the confluence on the other. This explicit, color-coded stratigraphy of civil and martial space is a distinctive virtue of the map and a key reason it rewards close urban study.
John George Bartholomew, often called the “Prince of Cartography,” brings his characteristic synthesis of scientific exactitude and typographic grace to this plate, while Archibald Constable & Company situates it within the authoritative Constable’s Hand Atlas of India. Bartholomew’s judicious use of color and symbol renders complex urban information—roads, rails, parks, public buildings, and cantonments—instantly intelligible. For historians, the map fixes Allahabad at the height of its provincial primacy, when courts, colleges, and administrative offices transformed its civic core even as bazaars and riverfront traditions endured. For collectors and connoisseurs of city plans, it exemplifies late-Victorian urban cartography: a meticulous, idea-rich sheet that reveals how transport, water, and power organized one of North India’s most significant cities.
Streets and roads on this map
- Allenby Road
- Ameenabad Road
- Awasthi Road
- Bank Road
- Beli Road
- Civil Lines Road
- Company Bagh Road
- Daryaganj Road
- East Track Road
- Elgin Road
- French Road
- Ganeshganj Road
- Ghonshah Road
- Hathi Pahar Road
- Jawahar Road
- Jewar Road
- Kydganj Road
- Lalita Devi Road
- Mahatma Gandhi Marg
- Mohan Road
- Mothi Bagh Road
- New Cantonment Road
- Numaish Road
- Old Bai Ka Kua
- Paharganj Road
- Parade Road
- Raebareli Road
- Sadar Bazar Road
- Strategic Road
- Victoria Road
- Walled City Road
Notable Features & Landmarks
- Allahabad Fort
- Cantonment areas marked in yellow
- Major roads and railways
- Parks and public buildings
- Rivers Ganges and Jumna
- Land inundated during rains
- Various landmarks and neighbourhoods
Historical and design context
- Map Title: Allahabad and Environs (Plate 44).
- Mapmaker/Publisher: Created by J G John George Bartholomew and published by Archibald Constable & Company.
- Date of Creation: 1893.
- Map's Origin: This map is part of the "Constable's Hand Atlas of India," which consists of 60 double-page maps.
- Design: The binding is distinctive, made of red cloth with maroon goatskin, featuring gilt accents, reflecting high-quality craftsmanship typical of significant historical publications.
- Geographical Context: Depicts the city of Allahabad and surrounding areas, detailing various features pertinent to late 19th-century India.
- Historical Significance: Serves as a valuable resource for historians and cartography enthusiasts to understand the geography and infrastructure of 19th-century India.
Please double check the images to make sure that a specific town or place is shown on this map. You can also get in touch and ask us to check the map for you.
This map looks great at every size, but I always recommend going for a larger size if you have space. That way you can easily make out all of the details.
This map looks amazing at sizes all the way up to 50in (125cm). If you are looking for a larger map, please get in touch.
The model in the listing images is holding the 18x24in (45x60cm) version of this map.
The fifth listing image shows an example of my map personalisation service.
If you’re looking for something slightly different, check out my collection of the best old maps to see if something else catches your eye.
Please contact me to check if a certain location, landmark or feature is shown on this map.
This would make a wonderful birthday, Christmas, Father's Day, work leaving, anniversary or housewarming gift for someone from the areas covered by this map.
This map is available as a giclée print on acid free archival matte paper, or you can buy it framed. The frame is a nice, simple black frame that suits most aesthetics. Please get in touch if you'd like a different frame colour or material. My frames are glazed with super-clear museum-grade acrylic (perspex/acrylite), which is significantly less reflective than glass, safer, and will always arrive in perfect condition.
This map is also available as a float framed canvas, sometimes known as a shadow gap framed canvas or canvas floater. The map is printed on artist's cotton canvas and then stretched over a handmade box frame. We then "float" the canvas inside a wooden frame, which is available in a range of colours (black, dark brown, oak, antique gold and white). This is a wonderful way to present a map without glazing in front. See some examples of float framed canvas maps and explore the differences between my different finishes.
For something truly unique, this map is also available in "Unique 3D", our trademarked process that dramatically transforms the map so that it has a wonderful sense of depth. We combine the original map with detailed topography and elevation data, so that mountains and the terrain really "pop". For more info and examples of 3D maps, check my Unique 3D page.
Allahabad and Environs (Plate 44) captures the late-nineteenth-century capital at the storied junction of the Ganges and Jumna, rendered with the lucid precision of John George Bartholomew and issued by Archibald Constable & Company in 1893. As a city map, it is unusually revealing: the Mughal-era Allahabad Fort anchors the riverfront while a modern lattice of roads, railways, bridges, and canals radiates from the confluence, articulating a metropolis where pilgrimage, bureaucracy, and commerce overlap. Part of Constable’s Hand Atlas of India, the plate balances topographic nuance with urban legibility—pinpointing public buildings, parks, and river landings—so that neighborhoods, bazaars, and the planned colonial quarters can be read as a single living geography. The result is a compelling portrait of an Indian city at a pivotal moment of imperial and civic transformation.
The plate’s urban anatomy unfolds street by street. Walled City Road and Kydganj Road delineate the dense historic quarters near the ghats, where markets spill into lanes like Sadar Bazar Road and Daryaganj Road. Westward, a rational grid announces itself through Civil Lines Road, Victoria Road, Bank Road, and Elgin Road, tracing the planned order of the colonial administration. Company Bagh Road leads into broad green, a landscaped park counterpoint to the bustling chowks. Arterial thoroughfares—Beli Road, Parade Road, and Allenby Road—tie these districts to the broader road network, while Ameenabad, Ganeshganj, and Paharganj Roads sketch the residential suburbs advancing beyond the old ramparts. The juxtaposition of intimate neighborhoods with broad avenues and civic greens is precisely what makes this an especially interesting city map.
Bartholomew gives the rivers a starring role, mapping the Ganges and Jumna with careful attention to banks, islands, and the seasonal drama of monsoon water. Areas marked as “land inundated during rains” disclose the city’s hydrological logic, revealing floodplain margins that shaped settlement, road alignments, and the positioning of public works. Railway lines and river bridges stitch the banks into a single urban field, with East Track Road shadowing the iron way and confirming Allahabad’s emergence as a rail hub linking the North-Western Provinces to broader markets. Canals and embankments curve along the low ground, while river landings and ferry points speak to the enduring vitality of river trade and pilgrimage traffic at the Sangam. It is a hydroscape rendered as infrastructure, belief, and economy all at once.
Military geography is foregrounded with rare candor: cantonments are tinted in yellow, and their internal order—Parade Road, Sadar Bazar Road, New Cantonment Road, and Strategic Road—reads like a manual of garrison planning. The spatial relationship between these cantonments, the Fort, and the trunk roads explains how the city was secured after 1857 and how troops, mail, and commodities flowed between depots, railheads, and river crossings. The yellow washes also make plain the duality of Allahabad—administrative seat, legal center, and rail nexus on one hand; fortified node commanding the confluence on the other. This explicit, color-coded stratigraphy of civil and martial space is a distinctive virtue of the map and a key reason it rewards close urban study.
John George Bartholomew, often called the “Prince of Cartography,” brings his characteristic synthesis of scientific exactitude and typographic grace to this plate, while Archibald Constable & Company situates it within the authoritative Constable’s Hand Atlas of India. Bartholomew’s judicious use of color and symbol renders complex urban information—roads, rails, parks, public buildings, and cantonments—instantly intelligible. For historians, the map fixes Allahabad at the height of its provincial primacy, when courts, colleges, and administrative offices transformed its civic core even as bazaars and riverfront traditions endured. For collectors and connoisseurs of city plans, it exemplifies late-Victorian urban cartography: a meticulous, idea-rich sheet that reveals how transport, water, and power organized one of North India’s most significant cities.
Streets and roads on this map
- Allenby Road
- Ameenabad Road
- Awasthi Road
- Bank Road
- Beli Road
- Civil Lines Road
- Company Bagh Road
- Daryaganj Road
- East Track Road
- Elgin Road
- French Road
- Ganeshganj Road
- Ghonshah Road
- Hathi Pahar Road
- Jawahar Road
- Jewar Road
- Kydganj Road
- Lalita Devi Road
- Mahatma Gandhi Marg
- Mohan Road
- Mothi Bagh Road
- New Cantonment Road
- Numaish Road
- Old Bai Ka Kua
- Paharganj Road
- Parade Road
- Raebareli Road
- Sadar Bazar Road
- Strategic Road
- Victoria Road
- Walled City Road
Notable Features & Landmarks
- Allahabad Fort
- Cantonment areas marked in yellow
- Major roads and railways
- Parks and public buildings
- Rivers Ganges and Jumna
- Land inundated during rains
- Various landmarks and neighbourhoods
Historical and design context
- Map Title: Allahabad and Environs (Plate 44).
- Mapmaker/Publisher: Created by J G John George Bartholomew and published by Archibald Constable & Company.
- Date of Creation: 1893.
- Map's Origin: This map is part of the "Constable's Hand Atlas of India," which consists of 60 double-page maps.
- Design: The binding is distinctive, made of red cloth with maroon goatskin, featuring gilt accents, reflecting high-quality craftsmanship typical of significant historical publications.
- Geographical Context: Depicts the city of Allahabad and surrounding areas, detailing various features pertinent to late 19th-century India.
- Historical Significance: Serves as a valuable resource for historians and cartography enthusiasts to understand the geography and infrastructure of 19th-century India.
Please double check the images to make sure that a specific town or place is shown on this map. You can also get in touch and ask us to check the map for you.
This map looks great at every size, but I always recommend going for a larger size if you have space. That way you can easily make out all of the details.
This map looks amazing at sizes all the way up to 50in (125cm). If you are looking for a larger map, please get in touch.
The model in the listing images is holding the 18x24in (45x60cm) version of this map.
The fifth listing image shows an example of my map personalisation service.
If you’re looking for something slightly different, check out my collection of the best old maps to see if something else catches your eye.
Please contact me to check if a certain location, landmark or feature is shown on this map.
This would make a wonderful birthday, Christmas, Father's Day, work leaving, anniversary or housewarming gift for someone from the areas covered by this map.
This map is available as a giclée print on acid free archival matte paper, or you can buy it framed. The frame is a nice, simple black frame that suits most aesthetics. Please get in touch if you'd like a different frame colour or material. My frames are glazed with super-clear museum-grade acrylic (perspex/acrylite), which is significantly less reflective than glass, safer, and will always arrive in perfect condition.
This map is also available as a float framed canvas, sometimes known as a shadow gap framed canvas or canvas floater. The map is printed on artist's cotton canvas and then stretched over a handmade box frame. We then "float" the canvas inside a wooden frame, which is available in a range of colours (black, dark brown, oak, antique gold and white). This is a wonderful way to present a map without glazing in front. See some examples of float framed canvas maps and explore the differences between my different finishes.
For something truly unique, this map is also available in "Unique 3D", our trademarked process that dramatically transforms the map so that it has a wonderful sense of depth. We combine the original map with detailed topography and elevation data, so that mountains and the terrain really "pop". For more info and examples of 3D maps, check my Unique 3D page.
Many of our maps and art prints are chosen as thoughtful gifts for homes, offices, studies and meaningful places.
Choose a framed option for the easiest ready-to-hang gift, or choose an unframed print if the recipient may prefer to select their own frame.
We make orders locally in 23 countries around the world, so gifts can often be produced close to the recipient. This helps them arrive faster, travel more safely, and avoid customs or import duty surprises.
- We can deliver directly to the recipient
- Framed pieces arrive ready to hang
- Unframed prints are carefully packed in a strong protective tube
- Almost every order is made locally, for faster, safer gifting
- 90-day returns give the recipient time to decide
If you are not sure what to choose, please contact us. We can help you pick the right map, size, finish or delivery option.
Most orders are made locally and delivered in around 2–3 working days, depending on the product, size and destination.
We print and frame maps and artwork in 23 countries around the world, so your order is usually made close to you or your recipient. That means faster delivery, less time in transit, and no customs or import duty surprises.
Personalised and customised pieces usually take an extra 1–2 working days, because we prepare your design and send it to you for approval before printing.
Very large framed orders can take a little longer, as they need extra care in production and delivery.
Every order is carefully packaged: unframed prints are sent in a strong protective tube, while framed pieces are securely packed with protective materials around the frame.
If you need your order by a particular date, please contact us before ordering. We’ll check the best production route and delivery option for your location.
Express delivery is available at checkout for most countries. Next-day delivery is available in the UK, US, Singapore and the UAE.
Your order is covered by our 90-day returns policy and 10-year guarantee.
Our standard frame is a gallery-style black ash hardwood frame, with a simple, modern look. It is approximately 20mm (0.8in) wide. You can also view some lovely customer photos of framed maps and art.
We use super-clear acrylic glazing, also known as Perspex or Acrylite, instead of traditional glass. It is lighter, safer, and has lower reflectivity, giving the artwork a clearer, cleaner appearance.
Six standard frame colours are available at no extra cost: black, dark brown, dark grey, oak, white, and antique gold. Custom framing and mounting/matting is also available for customers looking for something more specific.
Most maps, art prints, and illustrations are also available as a framed canvas. We use matte cotton canvas, stretch it over a sustainably sourced wooden box frame, and then float the piece within a wooden outer frame. The finished result is beautifully presented, with no glazing between you and the artwork.
All frames are supplied ready to hang, with either string or brackets fitted to the back. Very large frames will include heavy-duty hanging plates and/or a mounting baton. If you have any questions, please get in touch.
We can also supply old maps and artwork on canvas, foam board, cotton rag, and other materials.
If you would prefer to frame your map or artwork yourself, please read our size guide before ordering.
Every Unique Maps piece begins with an authentic cartographic source or an original design from our London studio.
For our historic maps, we source rare originals from libraries, archives, auction houses and private collections around the world. We carefully restore each map for print—repairing age-related damage, balancing colour and improving clarity while preserving its original detail, texture and character.
Once restored, the map is prepared for your chosen size and finish. Your piece is then printed and, where selected, framed close to its delivery destination.
Our map prints use acid-free 200gsm archival matte paper and fade-resistant pigment inks, creating a rich, non-glossy finish designed to last. Framed maps use crystal-clear optical acrylic and arrive ready to hang.
Canvas, cotton-rag and other specialist presentations are also available. Learn more about our materials and finishes.
Personalising your map
You can add a short title or dedication, mark one meaningful place, or request one considered visual detail. For personalised designs, we send a proof before printing and you can request changes before approval.
For more complex bespoke commissions, contact our design team.
Original or Aged
Choose Original for true-to-source colour, or Aged for a warmer, richer antique character created with our specialist ageing process. See examples of our Aged maps.
If you are not happy with your order for any reason, contact me and I'll get it fixed ASAP, free of charge. Please see my returns and refund policy for more information.
I am very confident you will like your restored map or art print. I have been doing this since 1984. I'm a 5-star Etsy seller. I have sold tens of thousands of maps and art prints and have over 5,000 real 5-star reviews. My work has been featured in interior design magazines, on the BBC, and on the walls of dozens of 5-star hotels.
I use a unique process to restore maps and artwork that is massively time consuming and labour intensive. Hunting down the original maps and illustrations can take months. I use state of the art and eye-wateringly expensive technology to scan and restore them. As a result, I guarantee my maps and art prints are a cut above the rest. I stand by my products and will always make sure you're 100% happy with what you receive.
Almost all of my maps and art prints look amazing at large sizes (200cm, 6.5ft+) and I can frame and deliver them to you as well, via special oversized courier. Contact me to discuss your specific needs.
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