John Broad explores the rise and fall of the Verney family of Middle Claydon, Buckinghamshire, demonstrating the family's rise to wealth impelled by a strong dynastic imperative. He shows how the family managed its estates to maximise income and used its wealth to transform the Claydon villages and landscape, creating a pattern of 'open' and 'closed' parishes. Based on the formidable Verney family archive with its abundant correspondence, this book will appeal to anyone interested in the English countryside as a dynamic force in English social, economic and demographic history.
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