I love maps. Maybe it's because I'm spatially challenged (meaning: I'm often lost). Whatever the reason, I love maps.When I'm writing a scene set in Tudor London - which is frequently - you'll find me most days poring over some period map.To get the scene right I need to know exactly which streets and lanes my characters used, which wharves and markets they frequented, which liveried companies' halls they passed, which church bells tolled as they went by.It might be the scene of Richard Thornleigh on horseback bolting up the steps of St. Paul's church to shake off the horsemen pursuing him and Honor inOr Isabel Thornleigh rowing a skiff at night across the Thames from the Old Swan Stairs to report to rebel leader Thomas Wyatt in Southwark inOr Kate Thornleigh confronting her father on London Bridge as his troop arrests a fleeing assassin in, my work in progress.Every bit of information I glean from maps of the time helps me bring the scene to life.That's old London Bridge above. In Tudor and Elizabethan times it was the city's only viaduct. (Can you see the traitors' heads impaled on poles on the Southwark-side gatehouse roof in the lower foreground?) London, only one square mile in those days, was a city whose lifeblood was its river, the Thames.One of the best known maps of Tudor London is Civitas Londinum, known as the Agas Map from an attribution to surveyor Ralph Agas (c.1540-1621). Printed about 1561 it offers a richly detailed view of buildings and streets. It's fuzzy in the image above because I had to reduce the size, but full size it's glorious. On the Map of Early Modern London website http://mapoflondon.uvic.ca/map.htm you can choose a section of the Agas Map and zoom in to see street names, church names, trade companies' halls and more. It's an invaluable resource.Wonderful images, aren't they?I may often be lost when I'm driving in a modern big city, but in Tudor London I'm right where I want to be.***** My new novel,, will be released at the end of May 2014.For more about the Thornleigh Saga books please visit my website: http://www.barbarakyle.com/