Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Book in excellent unread/unused condition. See images. Fantastic book.

About the book >.>.> The contents of the house were sold in 1947 and in 1959 the house and grounds were acquired by Bristol Corporation. The early history of the family provides a remarkable example of rapid rise from obscure beginnings as farmers and craftsmen in the fifteenth century through trade and commerce in Bristol to a position of great wealth and to the status of landowning gentry by the later sixteenth century. The story of this rise and of the family’s origins at Aylburton near Lydney in the Forest of Dean during the fifteenth century their move to Bristol and their success as trades- men and merchants has already been told by Dr Jean Vanes in a previous volume in this series and need not be repeated here. In her edition of the Ledger of John Smythe covering the years 1538 to 1550 Dr Vanes has also shown the way in which John Smythe who was the real founder of the family’s fortunes acquired his immense wealth through trade built up a thriving business as a merchant in the port of Bristol and was able to purchase the house and estate at Ashton Court from Sir Thomas Arundell in 1545 and also invested extensively in lands in south Gloucestershire and north Somerset. (LL)