The local records office hold records of older houses. My house used to have a name plate sited above the door. There is one house a few doors away which still has the original sign 'Ivydene', my house was once called 'Hollydene' is this a Victorian thing? Anyway I have found out the name of the house and am making a plate to paint the name onto. A close look at above the brickwork showed the outline of a once harnessed sign, so I have managed to make a template of the shape. i will try and visit the records office, when I am a little less busy - which I have been meaning to do for a while.
It's fascinating researching your house, amazing what you can find out, spent many hours in CRO's over the years. Look at Census returns, they are a great useful source of information, started in 1801, but it wasn't until 1841 they started including more details. The street directories & gazetteers (names eludes me), but they have a lot of inforrmation on local trades, persons,etc , & might mention your place. Probate documents and wills for persons in your house can also yeild intrsting facts, local maps, OS maps can show orginal layout, plot size.
Old Ordinance survey maps are quite interesting to look as well. Especially to see how your property and the land around it has developed over time
Looking to go to the records office next week. They are closed the first week of each month to public. Photos can be taken, with a charge of £6 for as many photos.
Kellys directories was the name that had eluded me earlier, in fact Guildhall Library, London has every edition ever produced.
Cooool - keep us posted, Jit. How old is your house? Ours is not that old - built in 1939 - but it was for a cove who was a very popular pianist and composer of 'light' music from before then right up until the '60s - Reginald Claude McMahon King. He was on the wireless (BBC) virtually every day. Boring bungalow, tho'...
1893 +/- 1 year. Ive go other things planned, as am slowly bringing restoring the house, just fitted the front door. Originally there were iron railings set in stone (Cheshire red stone, I believe) the railings went in about 2" then hot lead was poured in. During the war there was a demand for metal to make weapons for the war effort, a lot of the metal cut out was apparently dumped as it could not be processed. A statement from the net summaries this: "They took away our railings. Men came and cut the ornamental railing from the copings on the little walls outside of the houses, along the whole length of the road, they were taken away to be melted down to make weapons".
You might be lucky in finding old photo's of your house,a lot of record office's have a local studies centre for your area, so will usually have a large collection of photo's, Wiltshire for example has at least 40,000 photo's of the county. Your house might be listed in building records for the county, once you start researching it becomes addictive, you get names of previous residents then you can start researching them on Ancestry.co.uk.
It can be very interesting to find out the history of a house. My house was built by a local man who bought the land from one of the neighbours and then he set about building 2 detached houses although it is not an old or very interesting house as was built in approx 1969 -1971.
The building department n the local council can hold plans of the house, but they are not the best of quality and stored on micro fiche, was charge £18 for a plan recently.
Better to start with the County record office usually cheaper to get copies of maps.. Ordance Survey 25" to 1 mile maps (1841-1952) will show the building layout, but not invidual room plan. Might have a few independant local maps showing a bit more detail.
Visited the county records twice this week. The first visit found a whole package of deeds to the house, showing all the owner up until 1974. Some of the writing was hard to read. I visited today and tried another document, found plans for the house, they were listed as building regulation plans. Not every house has history, but was lucky with my one. the house was built by a builder, which was then sold to a fishmonger. In 1931 the house was changed to the house number ans then named ' Holey Dene', there are quite a few variations of the names spelling. The kitchen was originally 3 separate rooms, which contained a scullery and larder, which had been knocked through to created one big open plan room.
The architect who drew designed the house, also design next door, its basically a mirror image of the house, I have had to go around here on occasions to get get ideas, as it has more of the original features retained. The plan was useful to look at as it showed all the drainage pipes, although the house wasn't made fully to the plan, it still provide an insight into the way life would have been over 100 years ago. Paid the £6 fee and took some pictures (priceless). It does seem that the records office is under funded and is probably run by volunteers.
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