SOURCES OF INFORMATION FOR PUBLIC BUILDINGS

Bishop’s registers and visitation records

Bishop’s registers give the record of the history of the church:

• When it was consecrated
• If anything (such as bells, church ornaments, organs or clocks) was presented, when and by whom
• If the church was united with another (e.g. during the Black Death when whole parishes died)
• Any consecrations of specific parts.

Visitation records reflect visits made to the parish churches by the bishop or archdeacon. Bishops were meant to visit every part of their diocese every three years, and archdeacons were meant to visit every part of their archdeaconry every year. They would ask ministers about their congregation and the physical state of the church, and the results would be recorded in comperta books (i.e. books of ‘things discovered’ during the visit).

What information they contain

Bishop’s registers:

• Records of any institutions to benefices (i.e. the ecclesiastical living) made by the bishop, including the date of institutions, the names of the clergyman and patron, and details of the benefice
• Copies of earlier documents such as:
  • Appropriations (i.e. transfers of parish tithes to a religious institution)
  • Presentations
  • Advowsons (the right to appoint the priest – this belonged to the person who built the church, and was granted in the 12th or 13th century to a religious house)
  • Unions with other parishes
  • Consolidation of benefices
  • Church consecrations.

You should also be able to see in the registers when the parish church was first built and to which saint or saints it was dedicated.

Visitation records

These were basically a record of the condition of the church building.

Where to find them

These can be found at the county record office.

Faculty court books

If a church building needed to be altered or pulled down, the bishop granted a faculty. The faculties were recorded in the faculty court books; there may also be faculty petitions (e.g. if someone contested a faculty relating to a tomb, pew or memorial), which were dealt with in the bishop’s Consistory Court. When the faculty was granted, a bond would be given to carry out the work; there would also be accounts for work completed. After 1940, an archdeacon’s certificate was required to say that the work had been completed in accordance with the faculty.

What information they contain

Faculties deal with repairs, alterations and removal/destruction: for example, bells, pews, the removal of lead from the church roof.

Where to find them

These can be found at the county record office.

Consecration records and title deeds

Consecration registers survive from around the 18th century and record the bishop’s consecration of:

• Churches
• Chapels
• Mission halls
• Burial grounds.

The papers of the consecrations themselves sometimes include the title deeds and a plan of the site.

There are also diocesan deeds and augmentation deeds (i.e. what the Crown did with seized lands when the monasteries were dissolved in the 1530s).

Where to find them

These can be found at the county record office, local diocesan office and National Archives.

Glebe terriers

Glebe terriers are the survey of church property in a parish; they list houses, fields and sometimes tithes.

What information they contain

• A description of the churchyard (which can be compared with the tithe maps)
• A list of the church furnishings, such as books, vestments and bells
• A description of church property (e.g. houses) and tenants’ names.

Where to find them

These can be found at the county record office or diocesan office; some have also been published by local record societies.

Parish records

As well as the registers of births, marriages and burials, parish records contain information about the church and any repairs made to it. The rector was responsible for the upkeep of the chancel, and the church-wardens were responsible for upkeep of the nave and tower.

What information they contain

• Benefice papers
• Churchwardens’ accounts – record of amounts spent on the maintenance of the church
• Vestry minutes – information about alteration and repair work
• Sequestration accounts – when an ecclesiastical living became vacant, a sequestrator was responsible for the chancel and its upkeep.

Where to find them

These can be found at the county record office.

Potential difficulties

Their survival is patchy and varies between parishes; you are unlikely to find them before the 1500s.

Churchyard surveys

Churchyards have been surveyed by people interested in churchyards, for example, in Norfolk the WI made several surveys in the 1980s.

Also, sometimes when permission was granted to move stones, the local authority made a copy of the inscriptions and deposited them with the Registrar General.

What information they contain

• Plan of the churchyard
• Inscriptions on gravestones and memorials.

Where to find them

These can be found at the county record office. Some transcriptions (for stones moved) are at the National Archives in series RG37; others are with the local branch of the Society of Genealogists.

Potential difficulties

Gravestones get harder to read every year due to weathering, pollution and vandalism, and some may be illegible. Churchyards in cities are often built over.

Cartularies

Monastic charters confirmed that a religious house had the right to possess its lands. Although many documents were destroyed during the dissolution of the monasteries in the 1530s, the charters were to do with the legal history of the estates, so they were often used by the new owners. The charters were written up in books known as cartularies.

What information they contain

• Boundaries
• Fieldnames
• Information about local families and tenants.

Where to find them

These can be found at county record offices.

LISTED BUILDINGS

Department of Environment lists are published for each local authority area and contain short historical and architectural descriptions of the buildings. These lists should be available in local libraries.

• Grade I – buildings of national importance or of exceptional interest
• Grade II* – particularly important buildings of more than special interest
• Grade II – buildings of special interest that need preservation (roughly 93% of listed buildings fall into this category).

PUTTING IT INTO PRACTICE

In practice, you will need two files: one for the building itself and its appearance and interior, and one for its occupants/owners/any events that happened. Some of the sources will have a bearing on both strands. Bear in mind that house names and street names change and there also might have been a different building previously on the same site.

Tracing the building itself

Start with the maps and see whether the building appears there:

• Ordnance Survey maps (work backwards as far as you can)
• 1910 (‘Domesday’) maps and hereditaments
• Tithe maps and awards
• Enclosure maps and apportionments.

Note the details of:

• The building
• Its owners – names, ages, occupations etc. (you can use these as leads for tracing the inhabitants).

If it is a specialist building (such as a church or chapel, listed building, school, former workhouse or hospital), check the Department of Environment registers.

Look at the deeds – if you can trace the date of any sale, see if sale particulars exist at the county record office or if there is something listed in the local newspaper. If the sale is recent there may be files at the estate agency; if the sale is in the 19th century or before, there tend to be very rich details in advertisements in the local newspaper. This may include a description of the building, and even outbuildings or part of the structure that no longer exists. Also check for any mention in the Victoria County History, the street directories’ ‘potted history’ and in any standard county history.

For specialist buildings (such as schools, hospitals), there may be registers available. If you know the rough date of when it was built or altered, it will narrow down your search in local newspapers. Newspaper reports may give you more detail about who originally owned the land or gave donations to a building fund.

For the 19th century and earlier it is often useful to start with the names listed in the tithe apportionment and then to move backwards to the land tax returns 1780-1832, and rate books (e.g. the Poor Rate). Bear in mind that descriptions of property in the rate books are often very sketchy. It becomes easier if the owner’s names in the tithe apportionment are the same as those in the last available rate book. You can then move backwards by rental value (and the position of the property in the book, which usually reflects the collector’s route). A change in rental value may reflect alterations or additions to the house.

Tracing the owner/occupier of the building

Start with the deeds and work back as far as you can. The Land Registry will also have some details of current and former owners. Cross-reference these against details from the 1910 maps, the tithe map and enclosure map (see Chapter 7); this may help fill in the gaps.

If the person occupying the building carried on a trade, you may be able to trace them through the street directories (see Chapter 8); but remember that the house name/number may change between directories or might not even be listed.

Check census returns (see Chapter 3) and cross-reference them against the other evidence you have. Work backwards from 1901 census – you may be able to trace back generations of occupiers if the house (or tenancy) was handed down through a family. Remember that street names tend to change over the years.

See Chapter 3, ‘Finding a Person’, for information about tracing a trail backwards.

Tracing events at the building

With specialist buildings (such as schools, workhouses or hospitals), if you know rough dates of events (such as the opening of the building, expansion, moves elsewhere or an epidemic), it will narrow down your search in local newspapers and you can see how the area was affected.

With any building, you should be able to trace events such as fires, floods, accidents, or criminal cases via indexes to the local newspapers (if available), through annals, or through secondary sources. Once you have narrowed down the date, you can look it up in the newspaper and then maybe trace from there through to court records or minutes. For example, I knew from secondary sources that in Norwich there was a severe flood in August 1912, so I could pin down the date fairly quickly in the local newspapers and that gave me leads to follow up about which streets were most affected.

I also discovered in Mackie’s Annals that in January 1827 there was an incident with a bull at the Bess O’Bedlam pub in Oak Street, and was able to trace that back to the original report in the Norfolk Chronicle. The report told me that the bull managed to get up the stairs and interrupted a musical party, and ‘the animal was dislodged with great difficulty’.

Chapter 5 gives more information about tracing events.