This detailed plan of the parish of Islington records each property and field boundary and even indicates the layout of the gardens and trees. A vignette in the lower right corner shows a view of Canonbury from 1821. The note at lower left reports the increase in building over the last seven years and the population growth.

The plan was a reduction of R. Dent's survey of 1805 and 1806. Dent's manuscript plan on vellum, was housed in the vestry of St Mary's Church, Islington. It is unclear whether the plan was ever published as we are unable to trace any printed examples of the work in institutions.

Thomas Starling (1796-1850) engraver and map publisher working in London during the first half of the nineteenth century. Born in Islington he was apprenticed in 1811,and had set up business on his own by 1818. Unfortunately it would appear that he was unsuccessful in business as he was declared bankrupt by 1824. He had recovered by the 1830s, when he engraved several large-scale plans, of Islington, Hackney, and Liverpool, among others.