The novel tells of the experiences of a young architect, Arthur Westray, who is despatched to the sleepy Dorset town of Cullerne to oversee restoration work on the once splendid, but now sadly deteriorated, Cullerne Minster. The project would seem to offer little by way of excitement: Cullerne is quietly dying, and Westray fears that any restoration efforts are doomed through lack of finance. He soon finds himself, rather unwillingly, caught up in the current of Cullerne life, and hears rumours about a mystery surrounding the claim to the title of Lord Blandamer, whose family vault is sited in Cullerne Minster, and whose arms-the Nebuly Coat-adorn the Minster's great transept window. When the new Lord Blandamer arrives, promising to pay all the costs of the restoration, the inhabitants rejoice-all except Westray, who suspects that the new Lord is not what he seems, and the gone-to-seed organist, Sharnall, who seems close to sovling the mystery of the Blandamer inheritance. Part social comedy, part Hardyesque tragedy, and part murder mystery, The Nebuly Coat stands unique among English novels.