House History Talk.

The speaker for this talk was none other than Rhys Griffith, senior archivist from Herefordshire Archive and Records Centre. Rhys has a wealth of knowledge in historical research and he demonstrated some of this during his hour long talk at Whitchurch Village Hall last Saturday where we had a full house in the meeting room.

Notes from House History Talk
Information was given on many of the useful resources at
Herefordshire Archives and Records Centre (HARC) plus some
additional useful online sources. One of the key points made in
the talk was that to find out about House History it is often vital
to establish the name or names of owners so that this can be
used as a source for personal information that also tells you
about the building and its uses. One other point made was that
working backwards is often key to finding the real history of
the house or building although with buildings sometimes it is
possible to skip back in history especially by looking at maps.

There is free access to HARC although you need to register for
a free archive card (see their website) and HARC is open
Tuesday to Friday from 10 t0 4 plus the second Saturday in a
month. The centre is just near Rotherwas and there is free
parking.

Key sources are:

Sales Particulars of properties as this gives the value of a
property at a point in time (always fascinating), might have
layouts of the uilding, is likely to have a map and give you the
name of the vendors.

Valuation Maps (1910) these were produced to woirk out how
much to charge in rates and show all properties

Trade Directories 1850-1940. This is particularly useful for
properties that might have had a commercial use but also lists
some private properties (usually the larger ones).

Ordnance Survey Maps. These show the existence of
properties and the land around them. They are available on line
for free from The National Library of Scotland.
Survey of Ancient Monuments 1932. This is particularly
useful if you are looking into an older property.

Census. The information from the various census are available
from 1921 (and every 10 years back to 1841) but from different
sources: e.g. 1921 Find My Past website but it costs; 1911
Ancestry.com available at HARC; 1901 online.

Tythe Maps 1840/41 (and other older maps). These, together
with Aportionment Documents, give names and details of
properties and fields.

Land Tax Assessments. At HARC

Manorial Records. At HARC

Wills. Theses are searchable online and can give useful details
of ownership as well as what items people owned.

Parish Records held at HARC can help track the people who
owned houses as they show Births, Marriages and Deaths.

Title Deeds are held at HARC for some properties

Forest of Dean Family History Trust. This is a free online
source and covers our area giving details of people and places.

Planning Records HARC

The Register of Electors HARC

The Ross Gazette some of which is available online at the
Herefordshire History Website

Finally it is worth noting that the oldest map HARC have for
the Great Doward is 1758