Itinerary of John Leland in or About the Years 1535-1543

He rode the whole of England while the monasteries were being pulled down around him. John Leland was Henry the Eighth's antiquary, sent to survey the kingdom's libraries and towns exactly as the dissolution destroyed them, and his itinerary is the only surviving record of a great deal that vanished. The last look at medieval England, taken by a man the task eventually broke.