Richard Newcourt

Richard Newcourt (died 1679) was an English topographical draughtsman and cartographer.

Life After Elizabeth Hext (pictured) died in 1657, Richard Newcourt was granted admonition of her will.

He was the second son of Philip Newcourt of Tiverton, Devon, and his wife Mary (née Tucker). Newcourt was baptised at Washfield, near Tiverton.

Architectural drawings and the map of London

Newcourt was a friend of Sir William Dugdale, and drew some views of religious houses, which were engraved for Dugdale's Monasticon Anglicanum. He later drew a map of London which was to become the most important one of the city executed before the Great Fire. It was engraved by William Faithorne the Elder and published in 1658 as An Exact Delineation of the Cities of London and Westminster and the Suburbs thereof, Together with ye Burrough of Southwark And all ye Thorough-fares Highwaies Streetes Lanes and Common Allies wthin ye same Composed by a Scale, and Ichnographically described by Richard Newcourt of Somerton in the Countie of Somersett Gentleman.

Plan for the rebuilding of London Following the Great Fire, Newcourt drew up a plan for the rebuilding of the City of London. He proposed laying the city out on a grid system, which would have divided it into 64 equal portions. Four adjoining divisions would have been left open to form a large central square, surrounded by houses after the pattern of those in the Piazza at Covent Garden, and four others would also have provided open spaces, one of them containing the rebuilt St Paul's Cathedral. Each of the other 55 areas would have formed a single parish, with a church and churchyard at its centre. A wharf, 60 yards wide would have run along the river, lined by an unbroken row of buildings raised on arches. Newcourt also produced a variant plan, under which the city would have been divided into only 39 parishes. The full text of his manuscript was published in the first volume of David Hughson's London in 1805.

Death Newcourt died in 1679, and was buried with his wife at Somerton. In his will, dated 25 March 1675, and proved on 4 July 1679, he mentions his eldest son, also named Richard Newcourt, his second son, Gerard, who succeeded him at Somerton; and his daughter, Mary, wife of Thomas Spicer of Somerton.