Find my home in history

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!!

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.

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.

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!

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.

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!

Absolutely MOnica but my point is that unless you have a very old farmhouse, as you do, a house, as opposed to land, is very unlikely to be identifiable in manorial records. The records may include the grant of a licence to Joe to build a house on land lying next to the highway between Fred’s land and Pete’s land but identifying that house, if it still stands, could be a monumental task as village property boundaries changed over the centuries, houses have been rebuilt and more constructed, and although they certainly exist, I have yet to find a handy contemporary map to help my research. As I said, I could only identify three farms because they have the same names today - but no information in the manorial records as to their positions unfortunately. There are other family properties which could be anywhere in the village - no descriptions given and names lost. It’s great fun though isn’t it!

GSM Researchers have been able to use manorial records to recognise specific holdings of land because when property changes hands, there are often descriptions of where the land is situated both in relation to topographic features and the ownership of adjacent properties.

The entry will say that John Smith has a property that lies between the land of Walter Potter and William Green and backs onto the lane to the church. A number people by working on these descriptions have been able to chase ownership of houses through time and also how families have moved round villages.

It is because of this type of research that we know who built our house in 1467 - and as proof, that year he was fined in the manor court for blocking the lane that runs behind the house. Just shows that builders haven't changed over the centuries, leaving their skips and building materials in the road making it hard for anyone to get past them

Even if you can find manorial records - which I have consulted both at an Oxford college and local record office - you are singularly unlikely to be able to identify a property in them. I have found names of people and property in them which are relevant to my family history but can only identify three of the farms they leased because they still have the same names as they did in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Unless you are looking for an ancient farmhouse, no chance I’m afraid.

M0nica - our village is still a bit like that!
And, rather like pubs, we have 'village names' and 'official names' for some of the houses.

The difficulty with many village census results, cetainly in our village which is nothing exceptional, is that until the beginning of the 20th century many village streets did not have numbers, nor did the cottages have names, so the census return goes: Cow Lane; cottage 1, cottage 2, cottage 3, cottage 4, etc.

As many cottages have been demolished and other houses divided up into smaller cottage or amalgamated to make a bigger houses, it is well nigh impossible to reliably to link census cottages with current dwellings. Ours were done because researchers were doing extenasive studies of our villages, and had access to the manorial records in the Westminster Abbey archive.

I wouldn't disagree with GSM but your best bet is if the village was owned by an Oxbridge College or a still existant religious organisation, as we were by Westminster Abbey, because they never throw anything away and usually have all the manorial records for the manors they owned, stashed away in their library somewhere.

Big estates change hands and few kept records indefinitely, then there are fires and the like.

The Land Registry don’t keep ownership records beyond the current owner. They destroy any old documents which are no longer required to prove the current owner’s title, only keeping those which for instance create covenants or rights, unless those matters are already set out in full on the title registers so that the documents creating them are surplus to requirements.
Censuses are usually only of use in urban areas as before the 20th century small village homes were rarely given a street address. The best chance of tracing the history of a rural home lies in it having belonged to a wealthy person.

It should be really easy Kali2 and to find stories about them too!

You and M0nica live in amazingly old houses.

Our house was a Vicarage from 1587 until 2008 when we bought it. I imagine it would be fairly easy to find the names of all the Vicars who lived here since then.

We have studied the history of our house which was built in 1811 - 1812. It was only sold twice. Once in 1897 and then in 1980 when we bought it.
We have made a timeline of who was living here as far as we know and some descendants of the original family gave us drawings, photos and even letters from the early days.
I have access to Ancestry.com at home so could look up things for you if you'd like.
Only for England and Wales unfortunately for me. I have to pay extra to see the Scottish records.

Just recently, while crawling about in the attic, our electrician found an old brazier with a few odd things inside. We think the servants used it for when they put out the fires. They will have taken some embers up to keep them warm in the attic bedroom.

Census is easiest. Registering with the Land Registry became compulsory in 1968 - I know because my parents didn't when they bought their house in 1967, and I had to sort it after they died!
Beware change of street names, not done too often in English towns; but in a rural area, house names and the names of 'streets' (often just lanes or tracks) used to change a lot.

We have sometimes written on here about changing attitudes to villages. I went to visit a relative who lives in a small village, and noticed that a nearby street had changed its name from Lea Lane to Lea Street. I asked her when that had happened, and she pointed out to me that the road had never had a name sign on it - we just used to call it Lea Lane. Apparently the local council decided 100 years ago that 'Lane' sounded old-fashioned, changed it to 'Street' but never got round to putting a sign up until recently!

Try your local library. I found out loads this way. Libraries often have a local history section or at least know of a group in your area.

The Land Registry will show who owned the house but the census returns will show who lived in the house. It may have been rented to the occupants.

It is so annoying that people don't keep the original deeds for their house. I guess over the years someone throws them out, mostly this would have happened around 2000 when everything went digital. I remember the solicitors offering us our deeds which we took, but a lot of people would say to just throw them out.

We were lucky enough to have the original deeds for another house built 1877. It was beautifully hand written on thick parchment and I can't imagine anyone not wanting to keep that.

I live in a house built in 1467. The manor of the parish was owned by Westminster Abbey from around 1400 and researchers have examined the parish records held by Westminster Abbey and we know who built the house and every one who has owned it or lived it in since.

Historical directories of England and Wales online might have something. I found it took a while to figure out how to search effectively but got there in the end.

Victorian Histories online would also be of use.

You can find out who was living in it at the censuses in 1841, 1851, 1861, 1871, 1881, 1891, 1901, 1911 and 1921. Most of these give their occupations and relationship to the head of the household, too.

You may be able to find out whether it was used for a trade, or as an inn or a shop, and searching local newspapers may reveal a mention of it as part of a news article.

It may be shown on old maps, and there may be planning consent for alterations.

A Google search (Local history Uk your house) came up with this page of links which may help www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=Local+history+Uk+your+house

The deeds for our house state the previous owners before us, back to when it was built in the 1890s.

Oh that's a shame Georgesgran. Fancy not being interested in the history of your home.

Last year we visited the house where my great grandfather had farmed. The lovely people who live there now showed us round and it was fabulous to see the places I'd heard about in stories since I was a child...even down to the old privy in the garden. We were able to give the current owners lots of information about the farm and my family who had lived there including photos of the house and the people who'd lived there before them. It was the loveliest experience and the feeling I got when I put my hands on the old walls there was incredible.

The new 1921 census apparently has a search address button.