"General Expenditure": account book recording the monthly expenses in both Nuneham and the London house of the Harcourt family.

Manuscript folio-size fair-copy, c. 36,5 x 24 cm: 197 pp., English (1 f. removed at the back).

Original leather binding by W. Massey (London stationer and bookbinder; ticket; rubbed).

Fascinating insight into the running of a 19th-c. "great house" with grounds landscaped by "Capability Brown" and at the centre of an estate wich covered over 1000 acres. Recording the monthly expenses in both houses, from May 1848 to August 1855. Regular housekeeping bills are recorded first and a sub-total produced, followed by the extraordinary bill and then a grand total for the month. The entries range from the everyday "Butcher; Poulterer; Fishmonger; Butterman" etc., tot the more rarified, one-off "Barry - Engraver & painter … £7/8/=".