House history
Whether you want to look into the age of your house or find out who lived there, our resources can help. We have:
- Ordnance Survey maps (from 1866 onwards) - these show individual buildings
- enclosure maps (1780s to 1830s) - these can be fairly detailed and the accompanying awards (schedules) will also tell you who owned your house
- building plans - our main collection is the Ingram Loan, which includes many local homes and premises
- thousands of photographs of local streets and buildings (arranged by place)
- more than 100 sale catalogues - these are arranged by place and give detailed descriptions of houses about to go up for auction
- planning registers and applications - we hold some and our planning department has a more complete collection
- street directories (from the late 19th century onwards) - these name the heads of many households; earlier directories might not include the actual house number
- electoral registers - these list each person registered to vote
- rate books - these are the most accurate way of finding out who owned and occupied a house, though they were not compiled every year.
- census returns (1841 to 1911) - these list all persons at an address and are available on AncestryLibrary.com
- title deeds - these are the agreements for the sale or lease of a house and may also describe the house itself
Please note: There may be gaps in the coverage of our collections.
You may also find the following books useful:
- 'Tracing Your House History: A guide for family historians' by Gill Blanchard
- 'How To Research Your Local History: Find out all about your house, village or town' by Patricia Brookes
- 'Tracing The History of Your House' by Nick Barrat
- 'Tracing Your Home's History' by Anthony Adolph