ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book offers a detailed and wide-ranging examination of gentle and aristocratic women's relationships with property, specifically as they were mediated through the lens of propertied women's estate management and agricultural improvement. It highlights the multiple routes by which women might become landowners, or come to act as such. The book presents clear evidence of women's agency at the head of large rural businesses with high turnovers and employing big local workforces. It discusses the existence of collaborative relationships between married women and their husbands, and between mothers and grown-up sons. The book also highlights the importance of inter-generational relationships which underpinned management on estates like Wrest Park, here involving a married couple and their daughter, and later her and her nephew.
