This article looks at ways of relating together two concepts of early modern urban life: the urban renaissance and the consumer revolution. Nottingham passed through a process of urban renewal between c. 1688 and c. 1750, and it is argued that in the absence of any public funding this must have been privately pioneered by the town's ‘middling sort’. Using probate inventory material the members of this social group are identified, and their habits as consumers examined. We speculate that it was this consumer-conscious middling sort which promoted urban change.