In a labour of affection, but no exercise in hagiography, Ransome interprets for a modern audience the story of the extraordinary religious community founded by Nicholas Ferrar at Little Gidding in Huntingdonshire. Ferrar was born into a wealthy, well-connected, merchant family. Their honourable involvement in the affairs of the failing Virginia Company brought the family to the verge of ruin. In 1624 the family more or less successfully consolidated its remaining assets by purchasing Little Gidding and, in 1626, at Nicholas's instigation, the extended family, some thirty individuals from three generations relocated there, voluntarily agreeing to accept ‘Christ's yoke’ in hopes of serving as a ‘Light Upon a Hill’ that would ultimately bring a new religion into the world. Avoiding the great controversies of the age, and accepting that they needed ‘instruction’, the community established an exemplary daily ritual of devotional, educational and artisanal activity. That Nicholas Ferrar, the architect of the community's routine until his death in 1637, was frequently called away to address business crises – leaving effective oversight to his formidable mother – proved to be a source of tension within and between the assembled households and gave rise to the misogynistic gibe that the enterprise was an ‘Arminian nunnery’. ‘Protestant monastery’ was a more charitable epithet. Taking as an interpretive motif the intricate and beautiful biblical harmonies produced, almost against the odds, within this contemplative retreat, Ransome judiciously reassesses Little Gidding as a functioning community.