The volume contains details of penalties and fines issued by the manorial court of Thornthwaite in Westmorland. It opens A pain book taken out of an old one in þe yeare of our Lord God 1675, wch old one was begun in the yeare of our Lord God 1612, anno regni Jacobi Regis decimo. Folios 1-18v contain regular entries from 1612 to November 1707; the leaves containing entries for October 1629-April 1633, October 1638-October 1664 and May 1679-April 1680 are missing.
Other lacunae occur before and after the present folio 19, an imperfect leaf containing entries, on the recto, for May and part of October 1709 and, on the verso, for April and October 1730 [sic]. Folios 20-25 contain entries for:
- 1735 (in part);
- 1736;
- 1738-41;
- 1743;
- 1746;
- 1753;
- 1756;
- 1770;
- 1777-80;
- 1788;
- 1794.