The earliest map to show Cheshire in any detail was that published by Peter Burdett in 1777. It depicts the county at a scale of one inch to one mile (1:63360) but it is evident that the survey was patchy and lacking in reliable detail away from centres of habitation and main roads, particularly in its depiction of minor roads. However, as a cartographic source it contains much useful information about the general road layout, locations (but not extents) of heaths and commons, positions of churches and so on.
It is difficult to interpret
Burdett’s map in the area around Carden: because the Wrexham-Nantwich turnpike had not yet been built, all the roads in this area are minor and are consequently only sketchily drawn. One change is in the alignment of the road from Coddington towards Clutton: Burdett shows it without a kink at the southern end, a line that is preserved in hedgerows. The present road running southwards at the western foot of Carden Cliff does not appear to be shown, the road being a more westerly line preserved as tracks and public rights-of-way on later maps. Carden Green is represented as stretching north as well as south from the junction of this road with the road from Stretton Mill. The Mill is marked, as is Carden Brook.
There is no indication of a Park at Carden: the Hall is named, but there are no signs of an avenue leading south from it, a feature that Burdett usually plots. This perhaps means that the creation of the Park can be placed in the closing decades of the eighteenth century or the opening decades of the nineteenth, perhaps by William Leche.