ABSTRACT
Although the landed interest retained much of its traditional predominance, there were growing indications of possible rivals. The developing towns were a source of other kinds of influence. By the end of the seventeenth century, but not before, leading townsmen were accorded the status of ‘gentleman’. (Morrill 1979, 73) Building or rebuilding of aristocratic and gentry mansions was paralleled by urban building operations. The early Victorian construc tion of a magnificent new town centre at Newcastle was a striking example, but in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries there was a broad spectrum of urban improvements, springing from either individual initiative, as in the Lowthers’ work at Whitehaven, or communal schemes in provision of new town halls or market buildings.
