The content was variable: most focused on recording the ownership of estates and the descent of lordships of manors, thus the genealogies of county families, heraldry and other antiquarian material.
In the introduction to one typical early work of this style, The Antiquities of Warwickshire published in 1656, the author William Dugdale writes:[1] I offer unto you my noble countriemen, as the most proper persons to whom it can be presented wherein you will see very much of your worthy ancestors, to whose memory I have erected it as a monumentall pillar and to shew in what honour they lived in those flourishing ages past.
The genealogical and heraldic tradition continues with the series of Victoria County Histories commenced in the late 19th century.
The best known examples were Robert Plot's two volumes on Oxfordshire (1677) and Staffordshire (1686); and John Aubrey's unpublished work on Wiltshire.
William Lambarde's Perambulation of Kent (completed 1570; published 1576) is generally acknowledged as the first example of the genre in England.
It was followed by Richard Carew's Survey of Cornwall (1602), and William Burton's Description of Leicester Shire (1622), as well as a number of other projects (such as those of Sir William Pole, Thomas Westcote, and Tristram Risdon in Devon, and Sampson Erdeswicke in Staffordshire) which, although they sometimes circulated in manuscript, did not come to completion or publication.
Materials and collections for their counties were made by antiquaries, but publication might await sponsorship or enough subscriptions, as well as a capable author who would make a readable book, perhaps of multiple volumes, from notes.
[4] This goes back to the manuscript Accompt of the most considerable estates and families in the county of Cumberland of about 1603 by John Denton.
[32] Nichols included unpublished material from William Burton, Francis Peck, and Richard Farmer.
[37] Blomefield used material collected by Antony Norris, who later worked on completing and revising the history with John Fenn.