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Here we see Raven’s 1622 picture-map of The Drapers’ Company village at Moneymore: it’s a particularly fine illustration. Here one sees a cruciform village-plan, the head of the town being occupied by the bawn with the manor house inside. Other usual components are the mill - timber- framed, powered by water - and Irish village houses. Interestingly, in the middle of the village stands a pair of stocks and what is known as ‘a market cross’, symbolic of commerce and discipline within the village.
The Drapers’ Company were one of the best-documented companies of the Londonderry Plantation and many of their archives survive today. Very little trace of the village itself remains, however: only traces of the bawn wall still survive. Interestingly, this site is now occupied by an Orange Hall.
In the top left, one sees a small group of three Irish houses - low, thatched buildings. It’s hard to tell whether or not these are a true representation of what stood there because careful scrutiny of other of Raven’s picture maps shows three Irish houses drawn in exactly the same way, and this may have been a small ‘shorthand’ employed by Raven to illustrate the presence of Irish dwellings.
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