The temple itself was a great landowner, possessed of both farms and pasture land.
As wealth increased the peasant-farmer gave way before the large landowner, who cultivated his property by means of slave-labour, superintended by slave-bailiffs.
The duke of Devonshire is the principal landowner.
Woburn Abbey, belonging to the Russells since 1547, is the seat of the duke of Bedford, the greatest landowner in the county.