The dissolution of the monasteries in England during the 1530s began a turbulent period of restructuring. Focusing on devotional spaces in the counties of Wiltshire and Cheshire, Guinn-Chipman looks at how local communities adapted to the effects of religious reform, placing particular emphasis on the responses of those who were resistant to change. She argues for the development of a national identity created from memories of suppressed religious space alongside the formation of a historicized sense of the past following the Civil War.

The dissolution of the monasteries in England during the 1530s began a turbulent period of religious restructuring. Focusing on the counties of Wiltshire and Cheshire, Guinn-Chipman looks at the changing nature of religion over the next two centuries.