These deeds can cover decades of a house’s history from the moment the builder or developer buys the plot of land, through changes of ownership, and increasing prices. A deed can be a very lengthy document, if it was drawn up from the mid-eighteenth century to the mid-nineteenth (usually these are made from parchment), before being reduced to a more manageable size as the nineteenth century progressed. Abstracts of Title are not deeds but are a summary of deeds relating to that particular piece of land from earliest times to date, so are extremely useful if the original deeds do not survive.
Post-medieval deeds begin with the names, addresses and occupations of those selling the property (this may be several names, such as a man and his wife), then the same information for the buyers (or tenants). There then may be a recital of previous deeds, listing previous owners, before stating the current price/rent, and then listing what the property consists of, such as the grounds and any outbuildings. Any restrictions on the property will be noted – for instance, not using the property as commercial premises. Finally there will usually be the signatures of witnesses to the deed. Expect deeds to be parchment and if dated before 1733 they will usually be written in Latin. Dating is by regnal year, i.e. the year after the current monarch’s accession. So a deed from February 1728 will be one dated in the first year of the reign of George II. Charles II counted his regnal year from the death of his father in 1649, not when he actually became king in 1660, so there are no deeds for the first eleven years of his reign. That said, most deeds prior to about 1300 are not dated, so the only clue comes from the people mentioned in the deed. For nineteenth-century deeds, the date is given in the form recognizable to modern readers and the text is in English. Medieval deeds are generally far more concise.
Blagrove House, Barnard Castle. Paul Lang’s collection.
Many deed collections are, as stated, held at local authority record offices. They are usually well catalogued, which is a skill archivists are taught in some detail on their training courses. But the number of deeds originally created was so vast that the thousands of deeds in record offices represent only a fraction of these, and a researcher may not be fortunate enough to locate what they are looking for. As with any archives, a search by person/property on the access to archives (a2a) database is worth trying (it can be found on TNA’s website).
Several counties possess deeds registries, in which property transactions were registered. These are for Middlesex (1709–1938) and the ridings of Yorkshire (1704–1972 for the West Riding, 1736–1972 for the North Riding and 1708–1976 for the East Riding). These are huge collections, not of deeds, but of a summary of each one (there are some complete transcripts for some of the later ones). They are indexed by year by the name of the seller, not the address of the property. With the year of sale and the seller, you can then check the indexes to the deeds registry (on microfilm) to uncover the reference numbers for the actual summary of the deed. For the West Riding, there are 1.5 million deed summaries from 1704–1915. However, registration of deeds was not compulsory. Leases of less than twenty-one years were not recorded. Copyhold transactions were also omitted.
There are many types of deed, and we shall now examine them one by one.
A common form of deed is the feet of fine, which dates from the twelfth century to 1833. This was a tripartite agreement, with both seller and buyer having copies. The third copy went to the Court of Common Pleas and surviving copies are located at TNA. They are indexed at IND1/7233–44 and 1/7217–68. Many have been published by county record societies (available at county record offices and TNA).
Common recoveries were developed in the fifteenth century. They converted property from fee tail (where it cannot be sold) to fee simple (which can be sold). The buyer brought an action against the landholder, claiming the land was his and that he wished to ‘recover’ it. This was a legal fiction. The first party appointed a third party to represent them in court. However he would then default and so judgment went to the second party enabling them to acquire the property as fee simple. The first party would in reality sell the land to the second party. Up to 1583, judgments were entered into the plea rolls at TNA, CP40, indexed in CP60. From 1583 these are found in CP43, with indexes at IND1/17183–216. For the palatine jurisdictions, see CHES29 (Plea Rolls, 1259–1830), CHES31 (recoveries, 1280–1830), CHES32 (recoveries enrolments, 1585–1703), DURH13 (1344–1845) and PL15 (1401–1848).
Leases were common from the seventeenth century onwards. They were a method of converting copyhold land to leasehold. A lease often lasted for the lives of three named persons (thus providing useful family names), and was obtained by the payment of an entry sum and then an annual rent. Further lives could be entered on the payment of another entry sum. Sometimes leases were for just a few years, sometimes for hundreds of years. There is also the lease and release; in the former the purchaser pays a nominal sum only for a lease of but a year, and then takes a release in which the real money changes hands. These documents are usually found together and cease to exist in 1845.
Another major form of deed, from 1536, was the bargain and sale. The first party bargained and sold the property to the second. The first party retained legal possession, but the use of the land was with the second party, in exchange for payment. The latter also had to pay rent to the lord of the manor, too. All these forms of transaction had to be enrolled with the Clerk of Quarter Sessions, and so these enrolments, though not the deeds themselves, should be found at the appropriate county record office.
Gift of John de Chaisneto, c.1147. Author’s collection.
Patent rolls record grants of land from the Crown, and are found at TNA, C66, for the period 1485–1946. There are manuscript indexes in C274. Many patent rolls have been calendared, especially from the fourteenth to the seventeenth century.
Marriage settlements also concern property, though were usually restricted to the upper echelons of society. They are frighteningly large and bulky documents. Their essential purpose is to convey property to the newly married couple in a way that did not lead to the husband acquiring the whole of the bride’s portion, as legally all a married woman’s property belonged to her husband. Therefore the capital was given to a third party made up of trustees, so that the husband could only touch the interest or rents. As a lecturer in archives once noted, ‘Lawyers were an absolutely essential part of any eighteenth-century romance.’
You don’t always need to read every line of a deed, because repetition and legal phraseology often take up much of it. Instead you can scan the deed for names, places and sums of money. Much of this essential information may already be in the catalogue description, thus saving the researcher much work. This is especially the case if the deed is difficult to decipher.
Surveys
The Domesday Book of 1086 is a record of landholding, and is the most famous work produced by the Norman administration. It notes who held which manors and often who was the previous landholder (often a deceased Saxon nobleman). There are many published transcripts of it, some of which are indexed, and copies should be available at most large libraries and on TNA website. Yet not all of the country was included: the City of London and most of the north of England were not. However Middlesex was, as were other counties adjoining London, now parts of Greater London. Only the major tenants are included, so the number of names is minimal. Yet if you suspect that your ancestor might have been a major landowner in the late eleventh century, it is worth a look.
The following is for the manor of West Twyford, Middlesex:
In Twyford, Durand, a canon of St. Paul, holds of the King two hides of land. There is land to one plough and a half. There are three villeins there of half a hide, and half a virgate. Pasture for the cattle of the village. Pannage for one hundred pigs. This land is worth thirty shillings; the same when received; in the time of King Edward, twenty shillings.
In the same village, Gueri, a canon of St. Paul’s, holds two hides of land. There is land to one plough and a half. There is
a plough in the demesne, and a half may be made. There are two villeins of one virgate and one border of six acres; and three cottagers. Pannage for fifty pigs. The land is worth thirty shillings; the same when received, in the time of King Edward twenty shillings. This land belonged and does belong to the Church of St. Paul, in the demesne of the canons.
A Domesday survey was made of parts of the north of England in the following century, called the Boldern Survey.
There were less-known surveys of landholders, too. The Ladies Roll or Rotuli de Dominabus of 1185 was one, and this included the county of Middlesex. It listed lands held by female landholders, mostly widows and daughters of tenants in chief (i.e. those who held land directly from the monarch). Minors were also included. A printed transcript was published by the Pipe Roll Society in 1913. In the following century, a Book of Fees, which was a collection of records from 1198–1293, relating to land tenure throughout England, was created. It is arranged year by year and then by county. You can see the original at TNA (E164/5–6), but it is easier to use the transcription found in The Book of Fees, a three-volume series published by HMSO between 1920 and 1931.
There are other medieval surveys, such as those for Worcestershire, Winchester, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire and Leicestershire for the early twelfth century. All have been published and list landowners and their landholdings. The book Doomsday Descendants lists people from these documents and others from 1066–1166. The Boldon Book of 1183 includes the tenants of the Bishop of Durham and there is a translation in the VCH for Durham, vol. 1.
Moving forward in time, there are the Hundred Rolls, from 1255–80. These listed individual landholders in each manor, but also included the names of jurors and bailiffs, as well as their land and how much they were paying for it. Sometimes even unfree tenants were listed. As Edward I himself noted, it was meant to be ‘fuller and more detailed than the survey carried out by the Conqueror’. Although not all the returns have survived for all the counties, the surviving returns are to be found in the second of the two-volume Rotuli Hundredorum (1818). This is in Latin, but has an index to names and places.
Valuations
These were often drawn up by the parish in order to assess the value of property for rating purposes. They list landowners/occupiers, the extent of their land, what it was used for (arable or meadowland) and its value. For some larger properties, lists of fields (named) and buildings may be given. The 1821 valuation of Norwood notes that John Venables was owner and occupier of a dwelling house-cum-grocer’s shop in Southall, valued at £8. Eldred Dodson owned property on Frog Green, ‘a dwelling house, barn, a stable, shed, yard, garden and orchard’. There was meadowland to the extent of one acre, two rods and thirty perches, and the entire value was put at £15. If you’re lucky there may be a map which has numbers linking it to the valuation list.
Enclosure Records
From the sixteenth to the nineteenth century there was an agricultural revolution in the English countryside. The medieval system of strip fields was replaced by one in which land was parcelled out into discrete lots. This was done by enclosing land. Commons and waste land were also enclosed. In the eighteenth century the most common method to effect this change was by Parliamentary Act. This resulted in documentation being drawn up to show who owned and who occupied what part of the land of any one parish.
These were chiefly the Enclosure Award and a map, often the first ever drawn up of many parishes. The award lists those people who were allotted land and how much land they received. The maps show where these lands actually were. Most of these maps and awards are now held with the appropriate county record office or borough archives. For some of the later Enclosure Acts of 1801 and 1836, the awards are now held at TNA in record series C54 and E13. Awards do not list all parishioners, nor all householders therein, merely those, usually the better off, who were recipients of land. Day labourers, for instance, would be excluded. In some cases, only part of the land in the parish was enclosed and in some parishes none was, such as urban parishes.
Forfeited Estates Commission
Following the failure of the Jacobite rebellion of 1715, estates of the defeated Jacobite nobility and gentry were forfeit to the Crown, and a high proportion of these families were Catholic. These estates were chiefly in Northumberland and Lancashire, which were the two major sources of the minimal English Jacobite support that roused itself into action, though these men also owned land in adjacent counties such as Yorkshire and Cumberland. Surveys of landownership and tenancy details were made by the commissioners. Thus an examination of these unindexed papers, all held at TNA, in FEC1 and 2, can reveal details about lands held, owners, tenants, land values and rentals, with records sometimes going back to the sixteenth century.
Royalist Composition Papers
The unfortunate royalists of the 1640s and 1650s were not only losers in the political and military struggles of those decades, but were hit financially, too. In 1643 the Parliamentary Committee for the Sequestration of Delinquents’ Estates was formed to take their lands (no wonder that royalist John Evelyn spent much of the 1640s abroad). Even when the war was over, the victors showed limited clemency. In 1653, the Committee for Compounding the Estates of Royalists and Delinquents was formed. Those royalists who pledged their loyalty to the new order were allowed to pay fines to maintain their lands, on a scale depending on their involvement in the past war. Records of the said committees are at TNA, series SP20 and 23. Yorkshire Composition papers were published in the Yorkshire Archaeological Record Series for 1893 and 1895.
Estate Papers
The large estates held by the church, nobility and gentry often give details of the properties that these estates were subdivided into. Information about tenants and the lands rented from the owner are often copious. Rentals and land surveys were occasionally undertaken in order to assess the estate’s value and extent. There may also be plans of the estate properties. These archives survive in county record offices; some may still be held by the estate if it is still in existence, and so access might be difficult.
Gift of Walter de Clive of property in London,1289.Author’s collection.
Inquisitions post mortem were held on the death of one of the monarch’s major tenants by the King’s escheator or his deputy. They had to establish the extent of the estate and the rightful heir. A jury assisted in the process. Records are held at TNA in C133–42 and in E149–50, and survive in most numbers from 1270–1350. Various calendars and indexes exist; some county record series have published those for their county. The National Registry of Archives lists what exists and can be accessed on TNA’s website.
Auctions and Sales Catalogues
For substantial houses and estates, published lists detailing property, perhaps with a plan, were created, especially from the eighteenth century onwards, if these were to be sold, often on the owner’s death. These can be very precise, stating the contents of each room, even down to listing the books and wines, as well as works of art and more mundane furniture. They will usually be found in county and borough record offices, often along solicitors’ papers, and should be catalogued by the deceased’s name as well as the property’s name. They will tell a lot about the owner’s tastes and wealth, though they will not note who bought what. There is also a collection of auction catalogues at TNA, in J46, and these can be searched for on the catalogue.
Sales or rentals of property are often advertised in local newspapers and it has been suggested that, in the eighteenth century, this was their prime local function. Apart from giving the price, they will usually give a brief description of the property.
Insurance
From the seventeenth century it became possible to insure one’s property from damage; primarily fire. The Great Fire of London destroyed much of the City in 1666 and this prompted the existence of such companies and helped supply a demand for them. Initially insurance companies were based in London but very soon they had agents elsewhere in England. These included the Sun, Ro
yal Exchange and Phoenix. They often established their own fire brigades and their clients’ properties were identified by special markings.
Policy registers are the chief form of documentation which was created. They will list client, address, occupation, location of insured property, its contents, value and type of construction. Information about tenants if any would also be provided. Policy dates and premiums paid will also be noted. The records will be arranged in chronological order. There may or may not be indexes (contemporary or more recent). County record offices should hold papers of provincial insurance companies. Records for those of the Royal Exchange and Hand in Hand are held at the London Metropolitan Archives, and the two former cover the whole country. Another major firm was the Sun and its records are at the Guildhall Library. The Phoenix, which also had a national coverage, has deposited its records at Cambridge University Library. Westminster Fire Office’s records are at Westminster Archives.
Maps
Cities and major towns have been mapped from the early seventeenth century. However, from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries there are also many maps of small towns and villages. There are enclosure maps, of course, but there were many others, too. These feature most if not all of the properties in a parish. They might name houses and streets, prominent buildings such as public houses, schools and churches, as well as the houses of any nobility and the resident gentry. Even if your ancestor is not mentioned therein, these maps will give an insight into the immediate world in which they would have moved. From 1801 there are Ordnance Survey maps at one inch to the mile, but their coverage was only national by the 1860s. There may be maps of places showing particular events; the earliest one of Preston dates from 1715 depicting the battle there. Maps showing roads and the settlements they intersected were drawn by the turnpike companies in the eighteenth century. Maps can be found at county and borough record offices and libraries; there are also significant collections at the British Library and TNA. Some have been published and copies can be bought; sometimes they appear in published local histories.
Tracing Your Ancestors from 1066 to 1837 Page 11
