Originally published in 1982, and based on extensive research in estates’ archives, this book outlines the changing fate of the 500 largest estates in England over the centuries. It examines estates in their heyday and looks at their changing role as they declined in the twentieth century, showing how some estates have survived and describing the differing uses to which country houses have been put.

A collection of essays on the theme of Tudor and Stuart Devon. Subjects studied include Katherine Courtney, Countess of Devon; tinworking in four Devon stannaries; the legislative activities of local MPs during the reign of Elizabeth; landed society and the emergence of the country house; North Devon maritime enterprise; English wine imports, with special reference to the Devon ports- fishing and the commercial world of early Stuart Dartmouth; the clergy in Devon, 1641-1661.