ABSTRACT
A good understanding between landlord and tenant was the toast drunk at the Holkham audit in the days of Thomas William Coke, and the landlord-tenant system of farming as practised over much of Britain by the nineteenth century was seen as the ideal method of promoting 'improved farming'. The Holkham estate is one of the best documented in Britain, famous for its role in the promotion of the 'improved farming' of the agricultural revolution. This role, much publicised by Mrs Stirling in 1908 and R. E. Prothero in 1912, has been reassessed more recently. The actions of the great landowners such as Coke of Holkham were important in providing the infrastructure for 'improved farming', but it was the work of the tenants themselves which made places like Holkham famous. One of the most important differences between Holkham tenants and many of their contemporaries was the size of the farms they occupied.
