Volume XIX: "This little commonwealth": Layston parish memorandum book 1607 - 1650 & 1704 - 1747
The memorandum book of the Layston clergymen, Alexander Strange and Thomas Heton, is a remarkable source for historians of the social, economic and cultural experience of the inhabitants of an English local community from the early 17th to the mid‐18th century. Historians of Hertfordshire will find much of local interest here in the intimate disclosure of detail on life in the market town of Buntingford and in its contiguous parishes of Layston, Aspenden, Throcking and Wyddial, but the book is of far wider significance as it provides details of poor relief, the setting of parish rates, educational provision and the like which enables a full analysis of the politics of the parish. Appendices include lists of all baptisms, marriages and burials in the parish between 1604 and 1650 and a transcript of Strange's Assize sermon preached at Hertford in March 1608.
- Edited and with Introductions by Heather Falvey and Steve Hindle; also a contribution by Philip Plumb on the origins of the parish and a foreword by Mark Bailey
- lxxiv + 296 pages, fully indexed
- 12 illustrations including 2 in colour and 2 maps
- ISBN 0-9523779-9-3
£6 (+£4 p&p )