This book by Angela Nicholls seeks to demonstrate the part that almshouses played in the mixed economy of welfare in the early modern period. It draws upon detailed analyses of almshouse provision in the three contrasting counties of Durham, Warwickshire and Kent, and includes a micro-study of the role of the almshouse in the welfare republic of Leamington Hastings in Warwickshire. There is some impressive use of record linkage to shed light on the character of inmates, and although the archival base is not exhaustive (the records of the Clothworkers’ and Fishmongers’ Companies give valuable insight into the almshouses at Sutton Valence and Harrietsham in Kent, and have not been consulted), the trawl is pretty wide, and the book is thoroughly grounded in the secondary literature. The scholarship is nuanced and the exposition always clear. Throughout the study, Nicholls is careful to stress the variety of almshouse provision. Too much attention has been paid to the large endowed foundations with their often elaborate regulatory codes. Eighty per cent of early modern almshouses had fewer than twelve residents, and some had only two or three. The majority of almshouses did not have disciplinary codes. Looking at the smaller foundations also reveals a wider range of donors: the kind of status anxieties that lay behind foundations might be felt by middling tradesmen such as the dodgy Durham butcher, Sir John Duck, as much as by nobles, arriviste gentry, and fat cat merchants. Residents were likewise more diverse than we have previously believed. Only about a quarter specified that inmates should be old: younger people suffering from sickness and/or disability were sometimes admitted; younger, though not too young, women might be helpful in providing nursing support. While many establishments catered for the poor, often receiving people who had previously been maintained by the poor rates, there were many cases of almshouses which targeted more privileged groups, such as decayed tradesmen. Almshouses were often mixed-use establishments combining long-term residential support with temporary care for the sick, and even with the provision of work and training for the children of the poor. Stipends reflected the variations in types of establishment, such that the use of an ‘average’ is rather unhelpful, but it is striking that one-third of almshouses provided their occupants with allowances below what was needed for basic subsistence. Residents had to ‘make shift’, some of them continuing to work piecemeal, some drawing on a degree of kin support, but all dependent on supplementary charitable handouts. The county studies bring out interesting regional contrasts: almshouse provision was on a smaller scale, in terms of numbers of places, stipends, and available space for individual occupants, in Durham than the other counties surveyed.