Visual aids

Visual aids

If your house appears on a map of 1840, but not on one of 1825, then you know that it was built between those two dates. Or you may find that a small house on the earlier map has sprouted an extra wing by the time of the later one.

Old maps may show that your street or home once had a different name. It's best to find that out at an early stage in your research.

Maps of the area will help you uncover the past. Between one survey and the next a whole development could have sprung up.

Your local studies library out. should have OS maps to begin with. The most useful are the 25 inches to the mile maps. Start with a modern one and work your way back to the earliest of these in the late nineteenth century, noting any changes.

OS maps show in which parish the building lies. You may know this already, but sometimes there have been changes of parish boundary. It helps to be certain before searching for any earlier maps of the parish.

Map (above right) courtesy of the Ordnance Survey Historical Mapping Service out.

Only grand houses are likely to have been captured in paint or engraving, but the invention of photography changed the picture quite literally. Humble street scenes and picture postcards of farms and cottages dating back to the 1850s are included in collections of photographs held by many local studies libraries.

The wonderfully useful tithe maps were drawn up for each parish in England and Wales following the Tithe Commutation Act of 1836. You should find one for your parish in the local record office out.. The ideal was an accurate large-scale map, which showed every building in outline ground plan. The associated apportionment gives a brief description (such as 'farm house and barn') together with the names of the owner and occupier.

While you are in the record office, search for earlier parish maps. From the eighteenth century many estate maps were drawn up for landowners on a scale large enough to show each building with reasonable accuracy. Or if your house is Victorian and in an urban area, the record office may hold building plans deposited to meet local building regulations.