This map, made by William Kip and printed a full two centuries before the first Ordnance Survey map (1834), helps us to understand why all maps are not the same.
On the Kip map Smallford is not even marked and named, but that is not to say there was no farm or community there. The names, other than the town of St Albans, are manor houses or other significant country houses of the time. Farms, villages and hamlets were not deemed worthy of a mention. A traveller able to afford a map would be visiting a major house. So that places Smallford in a lowly category.
