A Plan of the City and Suburbs of London as fortified by Order of Parliament in the Years 1642 & 1643

Map 'of the City & suburbs of London as fortified by order of Parliament in the years 1642 & 1643', drawn by George Vertue for Maitland's History of London in 1738. In 1642 earthwork fortifications, gun emplacements and bastions were constructed around the city to protect it from attack during the Civil War. Thousands of Londoners, including women and children, were called upon to help complete London’s defences, ‘carrying on their shoulders iron mattocks and wooden shovels’. Women and girls carried baskets of soil ‘till they fell sick of their pains’. In the event, the nearest actual fighting came to London was Turnham Green, where parliamentary troops confronted Royalists in November 1642.