By the early Seventeeth Century, Timothy Pont had personally surveyed, with astonishing accuracy, all the counties and isles of Scotland, and made notes to support his cartography. Cunninghame Topographized is a chorographical description of the district of Cunningham, Ayrshire, in Sir James Balfour of Denmilne's Collections on the Shires (National Library of Scotland Adv.MS.33.2.27, ff.205-15). Although the author of the handwriting has not been identified, it is credited to Timothy Pont on the opening page. The short manuscript, consisting of a brief Introduction and an 'Alphabett' of 348 names in Cunninghame, Ayrshire, was extensively annotated by James Dobie, making this a substantial contribution to the knowledge of the history of the area. According to the Introduction, James Dobie's premature death in 1853 allowed a plagiarised version to appear, ( as Topographical Account of the District of Cunningham, Ayrshire. Compiled about the year 1600, by Mr Timothy Pont, edited by J. Fullarton, Glasgow: Maitland Club, 1858 ). His work was updated by his son and published, nearly twenty years later, as Cuninghame, Topographized by Timothy Pont, A.M., 1604-1608, edited by J. S.
Dobie (Glasgow: John Tweed, 1876). It is this 1876 edition which is reprinted here.

Volume editor: John Sheddon Dobie