Researching the history of houses
The British Isles boasts a great range of periods and styles of domestic
architecture, starting with the handful of Norman houses still standing. Up to
the 17th century the general run of houses used local materials, skills and traditions. While the
houses of the nobility and
gentry might be influenced by fashions from abroad or Court circles, the
average person lived in a house characteristic of his region - what is known as
vernacular architecture. From the 18th
century local builders began to make greater use of pattern books - published
designs which they could copy - bringing the same fashions to different
regions. (Online examples are listed under Georgian.)
While rural houses tend to be detached, urban houses, packed into more limited space, began to push up against each other in the Middle Ages. Since they could not expand any further width ways, they piled storey upon storey. The possibilities for nuisance from neighbours and the risk of fire spreading led to early building regulation in cities. Gradually regulation came to dictate the materials that could be used and even elements of style.
Georgian developers made a virtue of necessity by building terraced houses to a uniform plan in towns. Rows of town houses could be grouped into impressive squares and crescents. Meanwhile country landlords might build a village row, and some started a fashion for the semi-detached plan, by building simple cottages in pairs. The concept was elevated to the middle classes around the late Georgian period in occasional pairs of suburban villas.
As the Victorian suburban belt spread out around the Georgian developments, terraced housing continued for the poorer end of the market, but detached houses for the affluent, and semi-detached for the middle ranks. In the 1920s and 1930s the semi-detached became the favourite plan among speculative builders, but also those built by local councils for rental under the 1919 and later Housing Acts.
See also country houses, farms, granges, parsonages and bishops' palaces.
For listed buildings see Gazetteers.
Studies and bibliographies
- Archer, J., The Literature of Domestic Architecture 1715-1842 (1985) lists pattern books.
- Ayres, J., The Shell Book of the Home in Britain: Decoration, design and construction of vernacular interiors 1500-1850 (1981).
- Barrett, H. and Phillips, J., Suburban Style; The British Home, 1840-1960 (1987).
- Brunskill, R. W., Houses and Cottages of Britain: Origins and Development of Traditional Buildings, new edn. (2000).
- Colquhoun, I., RIBA Book of British Housing: 1900 to the Present Day (2008).
- Gailey, A., Rural Houses of the North of Ireland (1984).
- Harris, E., British Architectural Books and Writers 1556-1785 (1990) includes pattern books.
- Historic Scotland, Scotland's Traditional Houses: From cottage to tower-house (1997).
- Jensen, F., The English Semi-detached House (2007).
- Johnson, M., English Houses 1300-1800: Vernacular architecture, social life (2010). Includes the Great Rebuilding.
- Lawrence, R.R. and Chris, T., The Period House: Style, Detail and Decoration, 1774 to 1914 (1996). Traces the development of the terraced house in the British Isles.
- Muthesius, S., The English Terraced House (1982).
- Pooley, C. G., Local Authority Housing: origins and development (Historical Association pamphlet 1996).
- Quiney, A., Town Houses of Medieval Britain (2004).
- Smith, P., Houses of the Welsh Countryside (Royal Commission on Ancient and Historical Monuments in Wales 1975; 2nd edn. 1988).
- Wiliam, E., The Welsh Cottage: Building traditions of the rural poor, 1750-1900 (Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales 2010).
- Wood, M., The English Medieval House (1965).
- Yorke, T., The 1930s House Explained (2006).
- And see under Vernacular for a larger bibliography on traditional buildings including books on specific counties.
- And see the bibliographies for specific periods, such as Georgian, Victorian, and Edwardian.
- And see Interiors.
Research guides
Researching the history of your own house is so popular that good guides are plentiful:
- Alcock, N.W., Documenting the History of Houses (British Records Association, Archives and the User no.10, 2003).
- Austin, D., Dowdy, M. and Miller, J., Be Your Own House Detective (BBC 1997) is strong on fabric evidence.
- Barratt, N., Tracing the History of Your House, 2nd edn. (National Archives 2006) makes good use of sources in the National Archives. The Online House Detective is a briefer guide by the same author.
- Breckon, B. and Parker, J., Tracing the History of Houses (1991) is strong on fabric evidence.
- Cunnington, P., How Old is Your House (1980, 1982) is strong on fabric evidence.
- Harvey, J., Sources for the History of Houses (British Records Association, Archives and the User no.3, 1974) is excellent on medieval sources.
- Iredale, D. and Barrett, J., Discovering Your Old House (2002) provides a balanced coverage between documentary and fabric evidence.
- Murray, H., Documentary evidence for domestic buildings in Ireland c.400-1200 in the light of archaeology, Medieval Archaeology, vol.23 (1979).
- National Archives: house history focuses on documentary sources. A number of local record offices provide leaflets or online guides along similar lines.
- Thom, C., Researching London's Houses: an archives guide (2005) is written by an historian working on the Survey of London.
- Style, C. and O., House Histories for Beginners (2006).
Ownership
Freehold property
- Title deeds. Try the owner or local record office. The Law of Property Act (1925) abolished the need to prove title back more than 30 years. Since then huge collections of title deeds formerly held by solicitors have been deposited in record offices.
- Registration of deeds. A valuable source where the deeds themselves have been lost. Scotland established a national system of property registration in the medieval period. Information can be obtained from The Registers of Scotland. Ireland has had registration of deeds since 1708. Details of ownership can be inspected at the Land Registry and Registry of Deeds, and increasingly online. HM Land Registry was established in 1862 for those who wished to record the ownership of land in England and Wales. Between 1899 to 1990 compulsory registration on sale was gradually extended area by area to the whole of England and Wales. There are fees for the use of all three registries. Several English boroughs enrolled deeds in the medieval period, including London. Yorkshire and Middlesex began voluntary registration of deeds in the early 18th century; these registers are now in the relevant record offices.
Leasehold or copyhold property
The past owner is likely to be a large landowner, whose estate records should include maps, rentals, surveys, leases and accounts. Copyhold property was held by a copy of an entry on the manor court roll. The copies and/or the original rolls may survive. The National Archives hold numerous rentals, surveys and manorial court rolls, especially of Crown and ex-monastic property (see PRO Lists and Indexes vol. 25) For the estate records of private owners see family archives. Diocesan records cover the estates of bishops. The Bodleian Library holds the estate records of the Oxford colleges.
And see property taxation and valuation records.
Occupation
The sources below help to build up a picture of who actually lived in a house, what they did for a living and their standard of living. They can fill gaps in knowledge where deeds of sale or lease are missing.
- County and city directories with names and addresses began to be published in the 18th century, but provide much more complete coverage from the mid-19th century.
- Census returns: a census of the United Kingdom has been carried out every
10 years since 1801, except 1941. The census returns are generally open to
the public 100 years after the census was taken.
- For England and Wales the returns from 1841 give names, ages (over 15 rounded down to nearest 5 years) and occupations of occupiers by house; from 1851 they give exact age and parish of birth. The original returns are held by The National Archives, but they are usually read on microfilm or online.
- Those for any given area are generally available on microfilm in the relevant county or city record office and some local studies libraries.
- Those for England and Wales, Scotland, the Channel Isles, and Isle of Man 1841-1891 are available online from Ancestry.co.uk. Those for 1841-1911 are available online from Findmypast.co.uk. They can be searched online free, but there is a small fee for downloads.
- The census returns for Ireland gave name, age, occupation and number of storeys of the house from 1821, but only fragments of the census returns of 1821-1851 survive, and those for 1861-1891 were completely destroyed. The census returns for Ireland of 1901 and 1911 are held by the National Archives of Ireland, (with microfilm copies for the six counties now in Northern Ireland available at the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland.) Census returns for 1901 and 1911 can be searched and read online free.
- Census returns for Scotland in 1841-1901 are held by the General Register Office for Scotland, and can be read at the ScotlandsPeople Centre or online at Scotland's People or Ancestry.co.uk. Census Street Lists for the main towns and cities for all census years are also available online at Scotland's People. These can be used to locate the returns for particular streets.
- Indexes and transcripts have been made for many parishes; more and more are becoming available online. Street indexes to the 1841, 1851, 1861, 1871 and 1891 censuses of England and Wales are available online at Your Archives:Historical Streets Project.
- The 1939 Register was created under the National Registration Act, passed in September 1939 in response to impending conflict. It faciliated the issue of identity cards. Its content is similar to a census return. The digitised register is available via findmypast.co.uk.
- Electoral registers, poll books and burgess rolls appears from the 19th century. These are usually held in local studies libraries, but there are large collections in British Library and other national libraries. Jeremy Gibson, Electoral Registers 1832-1948; and Burgess Rolls (2008), provides a lists of such sources under county, by constituency.
- Rate books: usually deposited in public libraries or record offices.
- Tithe maps and other maps with associated surveys of ownership and/or occupation - see maps.
- Wills and probate inventories.
Descriptions
- Newspapers: advertisements for the sale or lease of properties frequently appeared in the local press, but are enormously time-consuming to locate without an index. Some local studies libraries have compiled useful place-name indices, or maintain cuttings files; a few are available online as searchable databases. See local libraries for details and guides to locations.
- Sale particulars (usually 19th-20th century): may be deposited in local record offices or local studies libraries.