Substantial manuscript ledger of a carpenter, builder and undertaker between the wars, mainly in the Ashford area of Kent, with detailed itemised accounts of a wide range of jobs (including 'Coffins and Funerals') for a large number of clients.

602 pages, folio, preceded by a thumb-index, comprising 301 numbered double-page openings. A sturdy and substantial volume, half-bound in brown calf with 'LEDGER' in gilt on red label on spine. In good condition, on lightly-aged paper in worn binding. Every page, including the index and endpapers, crammed with accounts, providing a mass of detail regarding the minutiae of Kent local social history, from the cost of screws and nails and 'Materials for Wheelbarrow' to 'Matchboarding Walls replacing door frame' and 'Repairing hot house'; also repairing sea walls, doing renovations, and working at pubs, cricket pavilions, churches, sports clubs, mines, lifeboat stations; on farm wagons, fish carts, thrashing machines, pit props. A total of twenty-eight pages list 'Coffins & Funerals' with the names and ages of each of the deceased. For example, '1924 | June 9th William George Gillett. Aged 63 Years. Polished Oak Coffin, with brass furniture Inside lining and Shroud £7 2s 6d | Funeral car 18/. 2 Motorcars 1 Noble 8/- 1 B & W. 16/- £2 2s 0d | Burial fees 10s | Paid 4th Septr. 1924 £9 14s 6d'. Clients include the auctioneers Reeve & Finn (for work on 'Coronation Villas'); Lydd Cricket Club; Kent County Council; Style & Winch Brewery; Ward's Travelling Roundabouts; Folkestone Gas Company; George Beer & Rigden Brewery; Lydd Football Club; 'Lydd Goal runners Club'; 'Odd Felloes Club, Lydd. Loyal Pride of Lydd'); 'Wesleyan Chapel'; Finn-Kelcey Bros, Newlands Farm. At the rear of the volume are several pages recording payments for timber, including: 'Oak Timber from Mr. H Brown', 'From bottom High Hockley Hill', 'From Mr. T Pearson's Wood Bottom of Hockley Hill', 'Mr. Brown's own wood come out beside his own House', 'From Yalding Wood'.