House Histories for Beginners

Popular television programmes are highlighting the satisfaction that can be gained from investigating the history of houses, and interest in the subject is growing. Archives, too, are becoming ever more accessible under the impetus of the internet. As the subject covers a broad field, the authors have set out to include advice on those aspects that usually apply to a project and others that will be of particular use for beginners. The reader is guided through every stage of research, from the first exploration of the archives to the completion of the project. Suggestions are also included on how to present the findings - a house history makes a very attractive gift. The authors describe how to deduce the age of a property (it is very seldom directly recorded when a house was built) and characteristics of research on particular types of property - such as cottages, manor houses, inns, mills, former church properties, and farms - are discussed. In one example, research demonstrated that a farm was likely to have been a Domesday manor - a discovery achieved using records accessible to any beginner.