Find my home in history

People also sometimes 'took' a piece of land and allowed it over time to be known as theirs. This still happens - in one small town here, there was an 'access' track that ran along the bottom of properties, which was used by householders to fetch water from the pump at the top of the terrace (within living memory)
Once everyone had indoor plumbing, folk started to move their back fences to the fr side of the track, saying non-one needed it any more. Fast forward to most of those households having 2 cars, and parking problems, so the local council tried to re-instate the common access and make a road - to offer access to back gardens and therefore parking. Oh the outcry 'you can't take my land!' even though many remembered when it hadn't been theirs. So no access, lots of parking problems, and I was in the street when a fire engine had to bash through for fear of lives being lost.

Just before Covid hit, our local pub shut. Someone whose property backed on to it, moved his back fence and built a patio on the pub land! However, once the pub sold, the new owners issued a notice to return it!

We are fortunate that the parish was not enclose until 1874, so we have enclosure maps from then and tithe maps.

Most land and houses were held in 'copyhold' from the manor, in our case Westminster Abbey so they made an entry in the manor records everytime land changed hands.

'Copyhold' existed until 1926 when a major land law was passed that turned copyhold into freehold.

The problem, of course, with most villages is that the lord of the Manor is not an extant religious establishment or an Oxbridge College and the records have got lost and dsetroyed over the years.

Very true MOnica. Records held by Oxbridge colleges are usually pretty well complete whereas survival of the records of privately held manors is frustratingly patchy. Ironically, several of the properties I can’t identify were described as freehold in late sixteenth century wills - Lord knows whereabouts in the village they were but of course everyone knew at the time!

In addition to the censuses there is also the England and Wales 1939 Register which lists everyone, showing dates of birth and occupation. It can be searched by address. People less than 100 years old or who may still be alive are redacted. We looked at DS2's house but later found that the street numbers may have changed since then.

From the mid 1800s most libraries have copies of Street Directories for each year for the area you live in. Some of these are available on-line if they have been scanned in This is a link to the one for Durham
specialcollections.le.ac.uk/digital/collection/p16445coll4/id/220226
To see if yours is available type Street Directories and the name of your town or county or area and see what comes up.

Yes! There is a gentleman who is about 100 who was born in one of the houses opposite, who knows all the history! Fascinating! Turns out that where I live was all fields 100 years ago and the houses down the hill/ main road was a farm. My plot was purchased by a local builder in the 1920s who put a bet on a horse in the Derby and won enough money to buy the land. He then built the house, along with a few others locally in same style. I also have all the old original deeds from prior purchases. A few weeks back a lady knocked on my door as she was researching family history and mentioned a name I knew from the deeds - she was their granddaughter! Fascinating!!