Eshton Hall, Gargrave.
Day Book 1849 - 1851.
A folio ledger with detailed accounts for the period, diary entries give more historical information and commentary than normally found in such accounts. Red and black manuscript. Vellum binding with some staining.
Eshton Hall was owned at this time by Miss Frances Mary Richardson Currer (1785 - 1861) who has been described as 'England's earliest female bibliophile'. Miss Currer had a library of more than 18,000 books at Eshton Hall and was visited by Dibdin who wrote '... with the exception of Althorpe, Chatsworth and Stowe, I know of no such collection in the country which can pretend to break a lance with it'. Charlotte Bronte was an admirer of Miss Currer and adopted her name as part of her pseudonym, Currer Bell. An archive of material relating to the hall is held by Leeds University.