Transforming English Rural Society

John Broad explores the rise and fall of the Verney family of Middle Claydon Buckinghamshire demonstrating the family''s rise to wealth as motivated by a strong dynastic imperative. He reveals how the family managed its estates to maximize 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.