Rare map

A rare copy of the first printed atlas of England and Wales has sold for £669,600 at a Sotheby's auction.

The work, by the Wakefield surveyor Christopher Saxton, also has a rare set of charts depicting Sir Francis Drake's journey to the West Indies and America.

Printed between 1579 and 1590, it runs to 40 pages of maps and plates - a landmark in Elizabethan cartography, a spokesman for Sotheby's said.

The new owner was an anonymous telephone bidder.

The atlas had been expected to sell for between £500,000 and £700,000.

The charts illustrating Drake's voyage across the Atlantic from 1585 to 1586 were made by Giovanni Battista Boazio.

The whole work is regarded as a prime example of early map making, showing for the first time in print a picture of England and its geography.

The book was offered as part of the sale of the library of the Earls of Macclesfield.