This chapter deals with:

• the owners and occupiers of your house.

As well as personal records such as parish registers, census returns, and will and probate records, and references to owners/occupiers in street directories, there are other records that can help you trace the owners and occupiers. As always, it’s best to work backwards and you may need to work with different sources to keep the trail going. You may also find that the sources also shed light on the building as well as on the occupiers and owners.

This chapter covers the different deeds and taxation records that can help you find out who lived in your house – what they are, where to find them and where to go next. These include:

• title deeds;
• Land Registry;
• manorial documents;
• taxation records – hearth, land, windows, poll;
• rate books.

The best place to start is with the deeds and land registry entries. If you don’t have a complete set of deeds you should still be able to find out information about the occupants through other sources – such as census returns (1841–1901), rate books and taxation lists, electoral rolls and street directories.

Mill House was particularly intriguing for me because there was a legend about the house: that the miller had strangled his wife in a fit of jealous rage, thrown her body down the well, and then burned himself on a bread-oven and died from septicaemia. His ghost was supposed to haunt the house. Would there be any documentary evidence?

TITLE DEEDS

Before the Law of Property Act 1925 the only way to prove your good title to the land was to produce all the deeds. Every time the land changed hands a deed was written out and the ‘abstract’ (i.e. details such as the owner’s name and the property involved) were written on the outside of the deed. Because previous owners might need to show that they’d bought the property from Mr A, who in turn had bought it from Mr B and so forth, deeds were often kept in ‘bundles’ so the legal rights could be traced back to the first transaction. Obviously, every time the property was sold the ‘bundle’ of deeds would grow bigger.

Your mortgage provider or solicitor should be able to let you see the deeds, though note that some mortgage providers may charge you to look at them.

Not all the deeds may be available. There are several reasons for this.

• Some deeds may be abstracts of title rather than the original deeds. If the owner of several properties sold off just one cottage, the original title deeds were still relevant to the rest of the estate, so wouldn’t be given to the new owner. In these cases the solicitor’s clerk would write out all the relevant abstracts of title for the new owner. An example of an abstract of title (for Mill House in Attleborough) is in Appendix 2.
• Some deeds may have been kept by previous owners.
• Some deeds may have been deposited in the local record office – note that they’re often not indexed so you may need to search through a lot of documents in the ‘minor collections’ section of the archives.

Working with deeds

Deeds tend to contain a lot of legal terms, so you need to have some knowledge of property law – and note that they’re often written in Latin until the sixteenth century. Deeds from the early twentieth century or before are likely to be handwritten rather than typewritten.

Earlier deeds are written on parchment, which feels slightly greasy to the touch. They will need very careful handling. They may be hard to unfold without damaging them, and if they haven’t been opened for years you won’t be able to open them completely flat. You’re likely to see a ‘title’ written on the back – that is, on the outside of the folded document – which identifies what’s contained in the document. For example, the conveyance for Mill House in 1912 has written on the outside:

The further back the deeds go, the harder you may find it to read the handwriting of the clerk. It’s best to work backwards, so you get a feel for the format of the documents, which doesn’t change that much over the years, and this means you won’t have to spend quite so long deciphering words in earlier deeds. It’s also worth making yourself an ‘alphabet’ of the script used, by using example letters from words you know as definite, to help you read the more difficult to decipher words.

Abbreviations

Because writing out every single word in full would be time-consuming and would also increase the amount of parchment needed and therefore the expense of producing the document, the solicitor’s clerk tended to abbreviate words that were used frequently in deeds and titles of abstract. A big clue to an abbreviation is when there’s a line written just above a word – this tells you that there are some letters missing.

Some of the more common English abbreviations, together with the full version and how the expanded abbreviation should be written in a transcription, are shown in Appendix 1.

Title deeds of property (freehold or leasehold)

Freehold property is when person A sells a property outright to person B. Between the sixteenth and nineteenth century there were two forms of conveyancing:

• Bargain and sale: where the owner of the property agrees to sell the property to the buyer at a set price.
• Lease and release: where the owner leases the property to another person for a year, and then the day after the end of the lease there is a ‘release’, so the lessor (the owner) gives up the right to recover the property from the lessee (the person who leases the property but wants to buy it). Once the release was made, it was effectively the same as an ordinary bargain and sale.

There are also leaseholds, where the owner of the property (landlord) rents the property to someone else (tenant). Most leases were for:

• a year;
• a term of years (usually seven years or a multiple of seven years);
• a term of lives (usually three).

Freehold conveyances will show the following.

• The date of the transaction, sometimes referred to as the ‘date of execution’ – it may be shown as a date in modern terms (e.g. 1 July 1790) or it might be shown as a regnal date (e.g. 1 July 30 George III – this is the 30th year of George Ill’s reign, which is the period 25 October 1789 to 24 October 1790).
• The names of the seller and buyer, who may be referred to as the parties to the deed – first party, second party and so on.
• The consideration – price paid to purchase the property.
• A clause defining the type of conveyance – bargain and sale or lease and release, as described above.
• A description of the property – usually starts ‘all that...’.
• Any ‘covenants’ or ‘indemnities’ – special conditions. For example, with Mill House the purchaser had to agree not to build in front of a certain line; and in the first house I bought, a nineteenth-century terraced house in the middle of Norwich, the covenant in the deeds stated that we were not allowed to keep pigs or dig up bricks.
• Witnesses, usually the parties to the deed and sometimes independent witnesses; each will make a seal and signature.

Leases will show the following.

• The date of the transaction.
• The names of the owner and lessee.
• A description of property, often along the lines of ‘hath sett to farm’ or ‘hath to farm let’.
• The period of lease, often a year, multiple of seven years or a term of lives, usually three.
• The annual rent.
• Any ‘reservations’ to the landlord, such as rights to woods or minerals on the land – these were fairly common.
• Any ‘covenants’ – special conditions.

The deeds should give a short description of the property and its location. They will also give the names of former owners and occupiers. If there is an enfranchisement deed, this shows that the building once belonged to a manor (i.e. was copyhold) so there may be records of the building in the manor court rolls and books. Copyhold tenure was abolished in 1925.

From a series of title deeds you should be able to identify successive owners. The deeds may also name tenants, former owners and occupiers, and sometimes adjoining neighbours as well, which is useful when trying to identify property in early rate books.

Unfortunately, the description of the actual buildings is unlikely to be precise because the purpose of title deeds is to establish the legal rights in a property. The house may be described as a ‘messuage’ (the legal term for a dwelling house) in the parish of X, in the occupation of Mr A. Description of lands may be a little more precise, giving field names. There may be references to boundaries, giving the names of the people who owned or occupied adjoining properties. There may also be a plan of the property, although these tend to be rare before 1850.

In the case of Mill House the deeds for 1891 included a title of abstract which led back to 1850 and there were also indemnities. The conveyance of November 1892 showed a plan of the land and stated who owned the adjoining lands. The land belonging to Mill House was shaded, as can be seen in picture 8.1 below.

If a right of way is shown (as on the plan in 8.1 above) the deeds tend to be quite informative because they need to be precise about the rights given.

You may also find other documents preserved with the deeds – these might include:

• probate copies of wills and inventories (see Chapter 9, page 154);
• sales particulars (see Chapter 7, page 99);
• mortgage details (see Appendix 2, page 178, for an example of mortgage details in the abstract of title);
• insurance policies.

LAND REGISTRY

The Land Registry was set up in 1862 to develop a register of titles to freehold and leasehold land, and about two-thirds of property titles in England and Wales are registered with the Land Registry. Since 1988 the public has been allowed to see the information held on the Land Register. For properties that have been registered the information includes:

• the location and extent of the property;
• the owner’s name and address;
• if there are any mortgages on the land;
• if there are any rights of way on the land;
• the price paid (since April 2000).

You can also get a plan of the land, but the plan doesn’t show the internal layout of the property.

You can view some of the information online, for a fee, at the Land Registry’s website www.landregisteronline.gov.uk. You will need a copy of Acrobat Reader on your computer to be able to view the information, which is downloadable as a PDF (portable document format).

You can also trace the history of the owners through the Land Registry, which can provide copies of all transfers since the property was first registered with them. There is an administration fee for this plus a further fee for each transfer they copy for you. However, these transfers won’t necessarily go back to when the house was built, as the records will only go back to when the land was first registered – which might be some considerable time later than the property was built.

MANORIAL DOCUMENTS

The manor was the basic unit of administration from medieval times. They varied in size; one manor could cover several parishes, or there might be more than one manor within a parish, each only covering a few acres. In Attleborough, for example, there were three manors: Mortimers cum membris, Chantecleers and Crowshall. The manor of Mortimers cum membris also held land in the nearby village of Old Buckenham.

Each manor had a lord. Tenants of the manor had to pay rent and service to the lord of the manor, and also had to obey the customs of the manor, which were laws such as trade regulations and the use of highways. The way that the land within the manor was passed to other people (succession) was governed by the manorial court, known as a ‘court baron’.

Until about 1733 manorial documents were written in Latin, though you may find that some books are written in English. Note also that regnal years are often used, particularly for documents before about 1700.

Documents from manorial courts include the following:

• Rentals – these were lists of all the names of tenants who held land in the manor, a description of their land and how much rent they paid (which might be in cash, service or produce). Rentals tended to be produced mainly when the new lord of the manor took over, so were not produced as often as accounts.
• Bailiffs’ accounts – these showed the income and expenditure of the manor during a year, which usually began at Michaelmas (29 September). It showed the ‘charges’ (money received by the steward – rents, sale of produce and levy of dines) and ‘discharges’ (money paid out for purchasing grain or livestock, repair of buildings and labour).
• Custumals – these were a survey of rents and services the tenants had to pay to the lord of the manor, and the rights and obligations of the lord of the manor.
• Extents – these were descriptions and valuations of the items on the manor – the usual order is the manor house and its grounds, then any mills, then demesne land (arable, meadow, pasture, woods) and then tenants’ rents and services. As time passed and the lord of the manor leased the land out to tenants rather than working it himself, the extents tended to be replaced by the rentals.
• Maps – these tend to be produced after the sixteenth century, and show the boundaries of the land and possibly details of the adjoining lands.

Among the papers you may find other documents relating to the administration of the manor, typically correspondence.

The earliest manorial records consist of rolls, which are pieces of parchment stitched together to make a long roll, or books. Some date back to the sixteenth century or even earlier. You may also find that some of the information is in ‘bundles’ – the pieces of paper within a bundle are unlikely to be uniform in size, and they can vary from scraps of about 3 by 10 centimetres through to large pieces which have been folded down to fit neatly with the other papers in the bundles. With the bundles, a former clerk of the manor may have written a brief description of the contents on the outside of each piece of paper.

If your house was originally held by a manor (for example, there is an enfranchisement deed or any reference to copyhold tenure among the deeds), you may find the manorial records a useful source of information, as the rolls will record the transfer of copyhold land between people, either by inheritance or by sale.

Note, however, that many manorial records are written in Latin. There’s also no central place where manorial records are stored. They can be scattered between local archives, the National Archives and private estates, although the Historic Manuscripts Commission holds a manorial register and you can search the National Archives website www.nationalarchives.gov.uk for manorial records.

From about 1650 the main function of manorial courts was to register transfers of property. There were four types of landholders.

• Freehold – freeholders had secure tenure and had no restrictions on their right to dispose of their lands.
• Copyhold – copyholders were customary tenants. They held a ‘copy’ of the entry in the manor court roll which recorded them as tenants (hence the name).
• Leasehold – leaseholders held land that was leased for a specified time (often 21 years).
• Tenant at will – exactly as it sounds; tenants at will held their land at the will of the lord of the manor. They were often the poorest tenants.

Entries in the manorial rolls contain:

• descriptions of the property;
• the names of the new and the previous tenant;
• the date when the previous tenant was ‘admitted’.

New copyhold tenants were admitted either because they inherited the property or bought it after the seller ‘surrendered’ it to the lord of the manor. This procedure was recorded in the court roll, and often other relevant documents such as wills and previous tenants’ details were recorded as well.

If your property was once copyhold it’s worth checking with your local record office to see what kind of manorial records they hold and if there’s any kind of indexing that will help you find either the property or its occupiers. Properties were often referred to by the name of the first owner, even many years after his death.

Typical entries in manorial rolls

Rentals are often split between freeholders and copyholders. The freehold list will have a heading along the lines of Liberri redditus burgagiorum de [place name] (i.e. Free rents of burgages of [place name]), while the copyhold list will begin Tenentes per copiam (i.e. tenants by copy).

The types of entry you’re likely to find in rentals include:

• Rental made and renewed by the oath of [person name] on [date] – the Latin form is Rentale factum et renovatum per sacrum [person name, date].
• [Person name] son of [person name] holds a tenement formerly belonging to [person name] his [relationship – e.g. grandfather] paying [amount of rent] – the Latin form is [Person name] filius [person name] tenet tenementum quondam [person name] sui [relationship – e.g. grandfather] solvendo [amount of rent].
• [Person name] holds freely a messuage with appurtenances and renders annually [amount of rent] – the Latin form is [Person name] tenet libere messuagium cum pertinentiis et reddit per annum [amount of rent].

You may see a reference to ‘various burgages’ (diversa burgagia) or ‘certain parcels of demesne lands’ (certas parcellas terrarum dominicalium).

There may also be references to the right by which the person holds the land (habendum et tenendum) – this could be:

• holds for the term of his life (tenet ad terminum vite sue);
• by hereditary right (de iure hereditario);
• by gift of (de dono);
• by right of [person name] his wife (de iure [person name] uxoris sue).

When it comes to a more detailed description of land, you may see references such as these:

• What the land contains, e.g. ‘one tenement with a garden’ (unum tenementum cum gardino) or ‘a cottage with a garden’ (unum cotagium cum gardino) or ‘a messuage’ (unum messuagium – this is a dwelling house).
• The amount of land, e.g. ‘containing one rood’ (continens unam Rodam) or ‘three acres of arable land’ (tres acras terre arabilis) or a ‘a virgate’ (unam virgatum – this is a variable measure, often 30 acres).
• Where it’s situated, e.g. ‘abutting to the north on a croft of [person’s name]’ (borealiter abbuttans super croftum [person’s name]).

In the court rolls you may find the record of someone asking for admission as a tenant. The usual legal form is that someone came to the manorial court ‘in his own person’ and asked for admission ‘in open court’ (the phrase you’re looking for will be along the lines of ‘[name] in propria persona sua et in plena Curia petit admitti tenens permissis predictis cum pertinenetiis’).

The admission of a new tenant usually follows the surrender of the land, which is often in the form: to this court came [name] in person and in open court surrendered into the hands of the lord of the manor, according to the custom of the aforesaid manor. (Ad hanc Curiam venit [name] in propria persona sua in plena Curia sursum reddidit in manus Domini Manerii predicti per virgam secundum consuetudinum Manerii predicti...)

Tracing a house through manorial records

I knew from the enclosure map that the plot for Mill House had once belonged to the manor of Attleborough Mortimers cum membris. I was delighted to find that some of the manorial records, including a rental from 1641, were held at Norfolk Record Office. Even better, it was written in English rather than in Latin.

The rental (reference NRO MEA 2/2) started with a list of numbered plots of land from previous rolls (working backwards from the present) and then listed tenants roughly alphabetically with the corresponding plot numbers next to their names. Finding the mill meant searching through the numbered plots to find the right piece of land, then searching through the list of tenants and matching the plot number next to them.

The description of the land in the rental was very patchy. However there were three interesting entries which seemed to refer to the mill.

• Plot 245 – this was listed as a record from the roll dated ‘6 April 14 Caroli Regis’ (i.e. 5 April 1638 – the fourteenth year of Charles I’gs reign). The plot was described as ‘severall pieces in Myll Field’ – and plot 245 was written next to a name that looked like ‘Robert Slom’ (questionable, however, as there’s a mark after the ‘m’ which means there was some form of abbreviation – the handwriting is far from easy to read!) Information in the parish registers made me wonder if it was actually meant to read Robert Howes and was simply written in the wrong place, as the ‘SI’ looked very like the way the letter H was written (and in Stuart handwriting, it’s quite hard to distinguish between the letters m and w), but a chat with the duty archivist in the records office dashed my hopes. The name was probably Slome or Slomer or something similar, but nothing like it appears in the parish records so I was unable to trace it further.
• Plot 341–2 – this was listed as a record from the roll dated ‘18 Aug 21 Jacobi’ (i.e. 18 August 1623 – the 21st year of James I’s reign) which referred to the ‘Mill Field’ (342) and a ‘cottage and yard’ (341), with a rental of £2, 3s and Od. (Obviously that wasn’t the cottage that exists today, which wasn’t built until the nineteenth century, but it may have been its precursor.)
• Plot 343 – listed in the same roll as plots 341–2, referring to a parcel of land ‘in SW fild’ [sic] of ‘Thos Okling, Millwright’ together with a mill.

Frustratingly, plots 341–3 didn’t appear next to anyone’s name in the tenants’ list – and Thomas Okling’s name didn’t appear there either!

In another bundle of the manorial documents (reference NRO MEA 2/24) there was a draft agreement from 1789 between ‘William Windham of Earsham in the County of Norfolk, the Lord of the Manor of Attleburgh Mortimers’, George Turner and the several copyhold and freehold tenants of the manor, regarding the licence to build a windmill. Although it didn’t refer to the mill in the centre of town, it did help me pin down the date when one of the other mills was built, because it referred to ‘waste ground or common pasture’ at Haverscroft. This was the mill known as Dodd’s Mill – the other mill shown on Faden’s map of 1797.

Another bundle (reference NRO MEA 2/13) held a draft of 99-year lease for the ‘piece of land called Tanmoor Common’ (i.e. the same place), and was dated ‘the 29th year of George the 3rd’ (i.e. 1789). This bundle also held a tantalising document dated 20 September 1659 referring to ‘the highway which leadeth from Lord’s Windmill to the...’ – but the next word is missing as the paper was folded at that point and had simply worn away. There was also a draft letter from Mr Franklin to George Turner, dated 16 September 1788, which stated, ‘you may say that I think another mill would probably be an advantage to the inhabitants of the parish’.

So although the manorial documents were unable to confirm who owned the mill in the centre of Attleborough, they did confirm that it was the only mill in town before 1788 – so any documents before that date referring to a mill would therefore refer to ‘our’ mill.