Finding house history

[miniwill58]

Hello

We’ve just moved house to a small village to be closer to family. It’s an older house compared to what we’ve come from, this one was built in 1917.

The house maintains quite a lot of what we believe to be original features and were fascinated by the history of it and really want to find out more.

Does anyone know how we can find out more information about the house and who lived here in the past? Has anyone got experience of doing something similar?

Thanks

[bobtail4x4]

the census?

ask the locals?

[FlipFlopGriff]

Given its fairly recent build the Cencus records should give you the info you need based on the address.
https://www.findmypast.co.uk/frequently-asked-ques...
FFG

[kev1974]

My house was built in 1895 (I knew that already because it says that on it just under the roof) but at one point I was reading a pamphlet put out by a local history society about the immediate area, and there in front of me was an actual photo of my house (well the whole row of houses) taken just as they were being finished off. Complete with a load of Victorian people going about their business in massive hats and dresses.

Was a moment of inexplicable joy, the actual house and surrounding buildings are exactly the same in that 1895 photo as they are now, but everything else about the scene is utterly different, like another planet ... today it's a normal modern road with tarmac, kerbs, paving stones, street lights, parking bays etc, and a zebra crossing ... in 1895 it was more of a cinder or gravel rough surface, there's no cars in the picture just carts, no pavement to speak of, there are street lights but completely different to today's, and there's no zebra crossing. I still find the photo absolutely amazing to look at and just think of how the buildings including my house have stayed the same for 125 years while so much has changed about the street scene outside and the way of life.

Maybe you have a similar local history society who are custodians for a load of old photos and you can have a similar experience to me, marvelling at how simple and uncluttered things were back when it was built!

[anonymous-user]

FlipFlopGriff said:

Given its fairly recent build the Cencus records should give you the info you need based on the address.
https://www.findmypast.co.uk/frequently-asked-ques...
FFG

???

House built = 1917

Latest census records available = 1911

[jagnet]

kev1974 said:

My house was built in 1895 (I knew that already because it says that on it just under the roof) but at one point I was reading a pamphlet put out by a local history society about the immediate area, and there in front of me was an actual photo of my house (well the whole row of houses) taken just as they were being finished off. Complete with a load of Victorian people going about their business in massive hats and dresses.

Similarly, our 1887 house appeared in several Francis Frith photos across a number of decades which meant that we were able to order copies of them. From being the only house in the street when it was built, with each subsequent photo more and more kept appearing.

Census records suggest that it was originally built by a local builder for himself. He lived there for about 30 years, then built a smaller house in the same road where he lived out the rest of his years. Using some of the distinctive architectural styles that he employed I was then able to identify several other houses in the area that he built. All in all quite an interesting little hobby for a while.

Whilst the local museum had little information on our road specifically, it was useful for piecing together the development of our little corner of the town.

kev1974 said:

but everything else about the scene is utterly different, like another planet ... today it's a normal modern road with tarmac, kerbs, paving stones, street lights, parking bays etc, and a zebra crossing ... in 1895 it was more of a cinder or gravel rough surface, there's no cars in the picture just carts, no pavement to speak of, there are street lights but completely different to today's, and there's no zebra crossing. I still find the photo absolutely amazing to look at and just think of how the buildings including my house have stayed the same for 125 years while so much has changed about the street scene outside and the way of life.

It's fascinating isn't it. The first image of our house is just like that and don't the streets look so much better without all the road signs, markings, etc etc.

[PDP76]

I wouldn’t know where to start with this research.

My house was built in 1875, upon completion I was sent out signed for documents from my solicitors. It was all the historical documents of ownership from when the land was purchased Upto about the late 80’s.
I had no idea I was getting them. Nice surprise.

[onedsla]

Council archives. They should have original plans etc from earlier forms of planning permission / building regs.

We found a surprising number of plans for our 1899 house, although mostly for additions in the 1900s as the earliest drawings had been lost when the archives facility flooded.

[Unexpected Item In The Bagging Area]

If you’re on Facebook have a look for any local history groups for your area. They can be a great source of photos and if you ask about the house some members may know about its past.

[StoatInACoat]

We have started doing this and went to the local library. Our holds all the old OS maps so from that you can date it and you have a starting point. They also had council plans of the houses in the town centre from when they were built at a much larger scale showing the size of the plot etc. Sadly mine is slightly too far along the road to have these. The OS map did show a load of structures that no longer exist in and around the gardens that I intend to investigate further.

I found a few bits and bobs online but it does also depend what kind of house it is and what the status of the person who lived there was. Typically the kind of person who lived in a "modest" workers cottage like mine for example would not be registered to vote wont appear on the census records of the time. We got lucky though!

Also, our house number changed at some point from 110 to 111 and then back to 110 again when it was recorded as being a shop for a few years (selling god knows what - something small presumably!) which can be a bit confusing.

ETA: This website helped me get approximate dates etc. I find it all fascinating even if mine is just a little Victorian terrace

https://www.old-maps.co.uk/#/

Edited by StoatInACoat on Thursday 15th November 09:52

[Etretat]

Your local reference library should have the electoral rolls which IIRC are every 3 or 4 years.
In my case living in Kent it was the county library at Maidstone. Had to make an appointment. All free of charge. Had to write all the info down with a pencil (Biro's not allowed).
Time consuming but found out lots

[Riley Blue]

Roman Rhodes said:

FlipFlopGriff said:

Given its fairly recent build the Cencus records should give you the info you need based on the address.
https://www.findmypast.co.uk/frequently-asked-ques...
FFG

???

House built = 1917

Latest census records available = 1911

The 1939 Register might help:

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/about/news/the-...

[FlipFlopGriff]

Roman Rhodes said:

???

House built = 1917

Latest census records available = 1911

1921 census being digitised:
https://ukcensusonline.com/census/1921/
FFG

[julianm]

You might be lucky with an aerial shot from years ago such as the collection here:
https://britainfromabove.org.uk/en/search?keywords...

It were all fields ...

[V8RX7]

I researched my father's farm for him, the old biddies at the local library tend to be very helpful with these things

I spent hours going through old microfiche, maps etc

And discovered why it was named, how it was built, who lived there and that a worker had been killed when the barn door fell on him etc

[miniwill58]

Thanks for your responses.

1939 register proved useful as a start, we found two elderly, widowed women were living in the house in 1939 and this has piqued our interest so we'll be trying the local library and going from there.

We also emailed our local council and they responded to say that they offer a service to find this information, at £30 per hour...

Edited by miniwill58 on Friday 16th November 13:12

[anonymous-user]

miniwill58 said:

Thanks for your responses.

1939 register proved useful as a start, we found two elderly, widowed women were living in the house in 1939 and this has peaked our interest so we'll be trying the local library and going from there.

We also emailed our local council and they responded to say that they offer a service to find this information, at £30 per hour...

So your interest is all downhill now? Sorry!

On a related point I've often wondered what our surroundings looked like in the past and thought it would be great if there was a way of overlaying old maps on the present satellite images (I see old maps is mentioned above and I've looked at that in the past). Last year I stumbled across

https://maps.nls.uk/os/6inch-england-and-wales/

If you click on the "seamless zoomable overlayer" you can overlay old maps with current Google, Bing etc images and see what was there before your house was built, or what was around it etc, Quite fascinating.

[miniwill58]

Roman Rhodes said:

So your interest is all downhill now? Sorry!

On a related point I've often wondered what our surroundings looked like in the past and thought it would be great if there was a way of overlaying old maps on the present satellite images (I see old maps is mentioned above and I've looked at that in the past). Last year I stumbled across

https://maps.nls.uk/os/6inch-england-and-wales/

If you click on the "seamless zoomable overlayer" you can overlay old maps with current Google, Bing etc images and see what was there before your house was built, or what was around it etc, Quite fascinating.

Ah... thanks for picking that up, I've corrected it

Very interesting link, thanks!

[anonymous-user]

miniwill58 said:

Roman Rhodes said:

So your interest is all downhill now? Sorry!

On a related point I've often wondered what our surroundings looked like in the past and thought it would be great if there was a way of overlaying old maps on the present satellite images (I see old maps is mentioned above and I've looked at that in the past). Last year I stumbled across

https://maps.nls.uk/os/6inch-england-and-wales/

If you click on the "seamless zoomable overlayer" you can overlay old maps with current Google, Bing etc images and see what was there before your house was built, or what was around it etc, Quite fascinating.

Ah... thanks for picking that up, I've corrected it

Very interesting link, thanks!

No problem.
I find a lot of this (relatively) recent history stuff fascinating - both how much has changed and how little has changed. Good luck with the research!

[bhippy]

I brought a Tudor cottage about 18 months ago...

I've managed so far to get a photograph on glass of it in 1880, a drawing of it in 1799 and numerous postcards with it on from 1900 onwards... all from Ebay!

Busy trying to do it up now... Here it is in 1880... on the left with the corner cut off!