ABSTRACT
Estate growth seldom was and seldom is a neat process of land accretion around a central core. The extensive land area of the Burghley Estate straddled the county boundaries of Northamptonshire, Huntingdonshire and Lincolnshire where they converged near Stamford. The Greenlands Estate was cut in two by the River Thames which formed part of the Buckinghamshire/Berkshire boundary, while part of the Wytham Abbey home estate occupied the panhandle in north Berkshire and the remainder lay in the surrounding countryside of Oxfordshire. Land not considered to be part of the home estate can be defined under two categories either as peripheral land or as a secondary estate. In terms of the physical changes and landscape impact of landed estates it is the home estate that is the primary focus of attention throughout this work. The temporal aspect of estate continuity relates both to the land area and to ownership.
