It’s not every day you get to work in a former prison cell when browsing through microfilmed parish records at a county record office, but such was the case at Denbigh Record Office in Ruthin. The staff assured me that I wouldn’t be locked in but nevertheless I kept a nervous eye on the door while I was working and felt an unusual appreciation of fresh air and freedom as I left the archive later than afternoon. The property I was researching was a medieval hall house dating back more than five centuries. It was once owned by a descendant of one of the Welsh princes and eventually came into the hands of an Owestry mayor in whose family it remained for 150 years. One of its tenants broke the law in marrying his deceased wife’s sister. He didn’t go to jail, but died young leaving his twice-widowed wife with five children.

All in a day’s work

I recently spent an enjoyable afternoon with a client going through the deeds of their cottage dating back three centuries. We discovered that during this time the property had been given by a father to his daughter and son-in-law on their marriage, bequeathed by a man to his great-niece and nephew, used as collateral for a mortgage of four times its value, the date the cottage had been extended and divided in two, and how it acquired its present name. Not bad for an afternoon’s work. A few weeks later I took my client to the record office for some on-the-spot research and her first experience of using an archive prior to her looking into some of the wider history of the area on her own.

Going back to your roots

We’ve been very pleased with our new website and have been improving the home page to guide visitors to pages relevant to their particular needs. This led us to  consider how house history is a contributory element of ancestral tourism – particularly for people who are seeking the homes of their forebears. What a great feeling it would be to find your ancestor’s actual house and either visit it yourself or, if that’s not possible, obtain a photograph of the place and its surroundings. I was lucky enough to experience this myself when I met someone at a local history study day in Oxford a few years ago who turned out not only to be a distant cousin but actually lived in my 3 x great-grandfather’s house. Humble his home may have been, but I was chuffed to bits to be invited to visit and duly have my photo taken outside. I’d love to help someone else enjoy a similar experience.

HRH connection

I was delighted when a new client announced that they had been introduced to my business through Prince Charles. HRH was presenting a programme about the composer Sir Hubert Parry whose family lived at Highnam Court in Gloucestershire. This led my clients to look up the property’s website where they discovered the Highnam Court Spring Fair and a link to our website as one of their exhibitors. That’s the first time I have got an order from a show before it has actually taken place. The fair itself was great even though the second day had to be cancelled due to severe weather.

Summer shows

We liked Highnam Court so much we are going back there to have a stand at the Gloucestershire Motor Show on 9-10 June. No, we are not diversifying into cars but offering an alternative to those members of the family not perhaps as taken with camshafts and carburetors as with shopping and who may be on the lookout for great gift ideas – which is where we come in. We will also be at Shrewsbury Flower Show on 10-11 August in our usual place in the Home and Craft marquee. Do come along and say hello.

Top tweets

We’d love you to follow us on Twitter. Here’s a flavour of what you’ll see:

• 1700: Richard Warrington came to his death by blows and wounds given him within this manor by a mare of the value of 40s.
• Apposite name found in old deed: the Reverend Churchman .
• Waifs and strays: waifs – ownerless property; strays – ownerless animals. Both defaulted to the lord of the manor if unclaimed.
• ‘Other’ seems an odd name to give a child, but it occurs through several generations of the same family.
• Love the way the Victorians punctuate their newspaper reports of meetings (laughter and applause). Very realistic (hear, hear).

Blogging news

We’ve been discussing house heirlooms, a day in the life of a house detective, and what your neighbours can tell you about your house. See our blog for details.

From the archives

Ludlow Advertiser

15 March 1930

Free to Ladies!

IRREGULARITIES etc removed by an up-to-date and certain method WITHOUT MEDICINE or pills. It is speedy and simple and a scientific system which has been practised with wonderful results; does not interfere with household duties. Medical SCIENCE knows NO better CURE. I have received letters of thanks daily that they have derived the greatest benefits.

GUARANTEED HARMLESS.

Send NO MONEY but write for full particulars and testimonials.

Mrs L A Stakman Morris, London

As far as personal records are concerned, archives can also come up trumps with diaries or letters that might concern former owners or occupiers. The owner of a Shropshire farmhouse with interests in one of its lead mines wrote copious letters, including some to his son, which were ultimately deposited with the business records and included some unusual content. One letter to his wine merchant declared he would die of a broken heart if he didn’t receive a quart of his best rum by return. As this gentleman began sliding into debt there came requests to various people to buy some of his farm stock and crops as he needed the money badly to avoid bankruptcy within a few days.

Litigation records such as witness depositions can yield stories about particular incidents into individuals and families. One lawsuit over a legacy of £50 gave insightful details of the behaviour of various family members by ‘friends’, neighbours and other relations that made uncomfortable reading. Wills too occasionally stray from the formulaic into the depths of family troubles or delights. I have seen tributes to caring daughters and a diatribe against a recalcitrant son who was the despair of his father and likely to send him to an early grave – which was presumably why he was writing his will.

And if you’re lucky enough to find any old photographs or postcards featuring local people, your neighbours may be able to identify them. So next time you’re talking over the garden fence or meet someone down at the local shops ask them if they know who used to live in your house. You may be surprised at what they can tell you.

When the research begins there are the visits to the archives, which always generate a frisson of excitement as the first documents arrive to be examined, and I begin constructing the historical evidence of the property’s history. Each new record contributes to the story and raises more questions: was there a connection between successive owners of the property, what caused the rise or fall in the property’s social status, how and why did those tenants end up so far from their original settlement? In searching for clues I may uncover new sources to explore if, for instance, the people connected to the property followed a particular trade or profession.

Questions emerge that require further research, breakthroughs are made in understanding why a particular sequence of events might have occurred, and new insights made into where the next set of clues might be found. Piecing together the story, asking questions and overcoming obstacles are all in a day’s work.

As the story comes together, there’s the fun of planning the structure and content of the history, writing the text and incorporating the images in the book format the client has chosen. Delivering the finished book to my clients is always a pleasure – by this time I feel I know their house well and can share their enjoyment of experiencing its past.

Our house heirloom

The most obvious building heirlooms are deeds. They can tell you more about the history of your house than any other source, revealing not only the names of former owners and occupiers, but also how the property descended, what it was called, its land, and tales of gifts, mortgages, debts and many other stories.

Other building heirlooms may be physically attached to the property. Take wallpaper for instance. Removing an old cupboard may reveal traces of old wallpaper, perhaps painted over, which when peeled away carefully can take you back through decades of decorating fashion applied to the very walls of your house.

Newspapers are sometimes found stuffed into cracks or under floorboards and not only provide entertaining reading but also indicate when works were being carried out in that part of the building. A Midlands Evening News from October 1900 inside a lathe and plaster wall panel gave us an approximate date that the room had been replastered – and possibly last decorated – as well as entertaining us with a story of a Wolverhampton glass dealer recovering damages from a cattle drover whose bull had pushed its head into her shop window while being driven to market.

Other artefacts might include shoes found in chimneys or between floors, and unknown tools and gadgets whose purpose has long been forgotten. Outside, it is not at all unusual to discover old bottles in sheds and outbuildings as well as in the soil itself. Outdoor structures may have been former privies or pig sties, and specimen trees may have been planted to commemorate a particular person or event in history.

One of our building heirlooms is a fragile old photograph of a distinguished-looking gentleman found in a cupboard. What will you leave in your house?

New look

We are tremendously excited about our new website launched this month. We wanted to have a brighter look, incorporate our blog that has been running for the last 18 months on a separate site, be able to update and maintain the site more easily, and, of course, to provide lots of interesting content for our visitors. Feedback has been very positive so far – do send us your comments. Many thanks to Ascendency Internet Marketing’s Website While You Wait service which we highly recommend.

Woodland bathing

One of our winter commissions was a Cheshire farmhouse near a former spa whose properties were widely acclaimed in the 18th century. Such was the efficacy of the waters that redundant crutches and bathchairs were left behind as newly invigorated bathers leapt onto their horses and galloped away. We traced the property’s tenants back through 250 years of estate records thanks to the fantastic Crewe archive. The changing fortunes of two of the farm’s 19th century tenants were vividly illustrated by their wills: one leaving over £40,000 to friends and family (including his ‘natural’ son), while 50 years later in the midst of an agricultural depression, a subsequent tenant left less than £100 and expired only hours after writing his will.

Tricky brickwork

The construction of a former coachman’s cottage on a Shropshire estate was something of a puzzle to its present and former owners who commissioned us to work out its original structure and explain how it had been built. Sue did a great job analysing brick bonds and came up with no fewer than six different bonds, four of which were on one wall. Mapping the bonding and the brick sizes enabled her to see which parts of the building were contemporary with each other, while comparisons with neighbouring buildings helped to date other parts of the property. Meanwhile my attention was drawn to the ‘unsuitable marriage’ of the estate owner’s eldest son that led to his eventual downfall, bankruptcy and a Chancery lawsuit.

Historical Highlights photo book

We also researched some of the history of an early Victorian town house in Shrewsbury and discovered that it had been renamed in the 1920s to reflect the Leicestershire birthplace of its owner. The occupations of its residents over the course of a century included an ironmonger, estate agent and auctioneer, vicar, Post Office engineer and gentleman of independent means. This client was the first to take advantage of our new, smaller sized photo book which is ideal for our Historical Highlights.

Top tweets

We’d love you to follow us on Twitter. Here’s a flavour of what you’ll see:

• 1831 Cheshire farm tenant had to do 2 days team work a year and deliver a cheese.
• Love reading the back of old postcards. Alice was missing Mr Gregory in 1908. Ah.
• Lord Crewe paid for ‘spent bark and wet hair’ sent to Crewe Hall in February 1832. My guess is for plastering but I could be wrong.
• Encountered an unusual name in the archives – Richard Strongitharm. Presumably a variation on Armstrong which is certainly easier to say.
• Witton-cum-Twambrooks is an actual place.

Blogging news

Curious rent demands, history by numbers and spot the difference, and an appreciation of indexers (Pulpit, goose in see Church) have all been discussed on our blog recently.

From the archives

Some 1639 Cheshire sins:

• John Ridley caught in bed with Mrs Pick the glover’s wife.
• Absence from church playing shovelboard.
• Elbowing Anna Taylor, sitting upon her in a pew that she called out in pain, her hat was almost thrust off her head and her band turned about her neck.
• Churchwardens accused of being arrant knaves who spent the parish money idly and did not attend church on holy days.
• Anna Anderton charged with wasting her dead husband’s estate on drink, living with John Cumberbach and neglecting her children.