I am interested in looking in more depth at counties during the Tudor period, and was considering Kent or Essex. Where can I find out more on them?
I see that there are books on Tudor Lincolnshire and Yorkshire, but could find nothing on other counties.
Not quite on topic, but this may be of interest - a survey of Cornwall, written in 1602:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/readfile?fk_files=1475103&pageno=1
I think it's the first published description of an English county - a bit of history in itself.
Try the County Council archives as there should be Tudor material there. Local parish records, local town records, court records, local landowner records, maps etc would be helpful. There are also several local historical societies who could help you. Personally I would find working at county level rather daunting; just think of how much information there would be on Tudor Canterbury or Tudor Colchester for example!
ReplyDeleteYou might want to look in the Victoria County History series for the counties you are interested in. This is a project started by Queen Victoria to document the history of each county in England.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.victoriacountyhistory.ac.uk/
Also you can search most of the volumes on:
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/subject.aspx?subject=5
Look under 'Local History' on left hand navigation pane.
These are histories of the county so you will need to go to the section for the years you are interested in. they discuss land, urban development, prominent citizens, events, buildings, etc.