Suffolk has been generously blessed with Houses with Histories.  Once as wealthy as any in the land, the county’s decline, when the wool trade departed for greater hills and faster-flowing rivers, may ironically have saved them to become our treasured heritage.  As the money left, so did the opportunity to move with the times and replace all those outdated timber buildings.

So researching your old house’s history can be both an interesting hobby and also a valuable contribution to our understanding of our shared past.   You may decide that what you discover is worth writing up and depositing at one of the Suffolk Record Offices in Ipswich, Bury St Edmunds and Lowestoft – I certainly hope you will.  And they would really welcome the loan of your oldest documents.

In this article I will illustrate my message with examples taken from two houses that I have been  researching – my own house in Chelsworth, now called Weavers but originally known as Clovers; and Cobbolds Mill just across the bridge in Monks Eleigh.  By chance, they were both once owned by millers, and at one time in the 16th century both were in the hands of members of the Clover family, probably brothers.  Their histories are contrasted, because one was a freehold property, with its own mill, and the other house was copyhold of the Manor of Chelsworth, owing allegiance and rent to the Lord of the Manor, who also owned the mills in the village.

I suggest that, if at all possible, you start with a visit to your local branch of the Suffolk Record Office. Contact details for Suffolk's three record offices can be found here.  They will be most helpful and can guide you to the indexes and references that will be of most use to you.  In particular, ask them if they can tell  you whether your house was freehold or copyhold in the old days – this is a crucial difference, as we will see later.

Then there are lots of sources you can look at.  These are the main ones that can tell you about the buildings and land:-

The original deeds (which may be in the hands of your mortgage company).
In some cases, the deeds of old houses survive as far back as the late 19th century.  They will give the names and addresses of the buyer and seller, the price paid and a description of the property, often with a map attached.


The deeds are of course legal documents and are expressed in legal language; but they are well worth studying quite carefully.  For example, we were surprised to find, in the case of Weavers, that a pub company was once a signatory to the deed – which tends to confirm the story told us by an old resident, now dead, that the house once served as a beerhouse, though no record of its licence now survives in the council records. 
The deeds will also enable you to look up other records, especially the censuses from 1841 to 1901 which are all indexed and readily available on the internet.  Then you can explore in more detail the lives and families of those who it was who owned your house and who lived in it.  More of that later. (Building societies and banks are becoming increasingly likely to hand over deeds to mortgagees if asked - Editor)

Another useful record may well be an Abstract of Title, which summarises a sequence of deeds and is often included with the records.  They helped us greatly to link Cobbolds Mill, in the hands of the Chaplin, Clarke and Archer family, with the three substantial houses just across the stream in Chelsworth – Hills, Howletts and Clovers. 

By happy chance, both the houses that I am using as examples have the original deeds still surviving from centuries back.  The earliest deeds for Cobbolds Mill are dated 1666, (though earlier wills take the story back yet further) and for Weavers we go back to the 18th century (in the form of copies from the Court rolls - hence ‘copyhold’). 

One complication you may meet is the problem of deciphering the old writing.  This especially the case with court cases, where the judgements are handed down in something called Court Hand.  You might need professional help if they are important to your story.

The Manor Court Rolls. 

If your house was once held by customary or copyhold tenure (such technical terms abound in the Court Rolls), the records in the Suffolk Record Offices will painstakingly set out the details of transfers from one owner to the next, with full descriptions.  The formalities, at least in the earlier days, must have been quite entertaining, as new tenants had to attend the Court and make their submissions to the Lord of the Manor or his Steward, according to the age-old Custom of each Manor.

You may need to make sure you have a classical scholar at hand to help read the rolls as the older Court Rolls were in Latin.

One bonus with copyhold houses, by contrast with the deeds of freehold properties, is that the record spells out not just who the new owner is but also who was the former owner, and the circumstances of the transfer, whether for example it was by sale or inheritance. 

In the case of Weavers, where the records go back to 1580, an additional bonus is that the house was once divided and the details of each room and part of the house are set out.

The Tithe Apportionment Maps of the 1830s, and other maps.

Generally speaking, published maps contain too little detail to be of much help with the stories of individual houses.  An exception appears in Canon A. F. Northcote’s History of Monks Eleigh, which reproduces a map of Monks Eleigh dated 1724.  The book itself is a valuable source of all kinds of historical information, as was Geoffrey Pocklington’s History of Chelsworth. 

Estate maps provide valuable contemporary snapshots of land ownership and usage.  One such accompanied the sale of Cobbolds Mill just before the last war, at about the time the mill ceased operation.

The Tithe Commutation or Apportionment Maps are valuable records of the old estates and of their usage, ownership and occupation.  Around the period 1836-1838, it was decided to commute into cash the old tithes – shares of all the products of agriculture in a village – which were theoretically due for the upkeep of ministers of the Established Church. (In reality, the entitlement to an annual income was often traded like any other investment and ended up in the hands of lay people). 

In Chelsworth, the tithe map was updated in 1885, providing an exact indication of the way land uses had changed, as well as the ownership and occupation of every property.

Another good source for these and other villages is the series of railway plans dating back to the 1840s.  Intending investors had to note all the land uses and owners abutting on their proposed routes; and there are many of them surviving in the Ipswich Record Office, though most of the lines were never laid.

Probate Inventories and Wills

For some reason, numerous valuations, or probate inventories, of even small estates were carried out in the 1660s and 1670s, and less commonly in later periods.  As well as describing in detail the furniture, goods and tools of the deceased – and their value in those days - they can give worthwhile information about the layout of the rooms and buildings in the property.

In the case of Cobbolds Mill, there are two fascinating records of a mill’s contents, as well as of its operating gear and stocks.  One is a straightforward summary of its value in 1773, the other a very detailed inventory and valuation ten years later.  It is interesting to note that there was also at that time a windmill on the estate, to the North of the Monks Eleigh-Hadleigh road.  No trace of it now survives.

Wills often provide a great deal of information about the occupants of our houses, and help to confirm family relationships; but only rarely do they tell us about the properties themselves. Several are included with the deeds in the records of Cobbolds Mill and Weavers.

Old postcards, photographs and paintings 

Photographic postcards were very popular in the early years of the last century, and some photographs even survive from the middle of the previous century.  These are simply wonderful pictorial records that cannot be equalled by the written records.  It is well worth looking out for every kind of picture, and of course this includes paintings and sketches from the old days.

In Chelsworth, we have a special record – a ledger that carries a photo of every house, and details of its residents, back in the year 1870.  In the case of Weavers, it shows that there used to be a slaughterhouse in the yard – the house was lived in by butchers and cattle dealers for many generations, and the small building on the street, which survives to this day, was once the butcher’s shop.

Cobbold’s Mill, too, has its pictorial records – not just old photographs but pencil sketches and a fine oil painting by Bertram Priestman (1881-1951).

Old sale noticesNewspapers often carried notices of the sales of estates, and posters also provide interesting details of properties for sale by auction or otherwise.  Even quite recent descriptions in the portfolios of the local estate agents reflect the huge changes that have occurred in the state and value of Suffolk houses.

We have two such notices for Weavers: one in 1897, and one from 1927 which mentions the slaughterhouse that has now gone.  In both cases, the occupants are named, and we have had great discussions with old people from the two families.

The official descriptions, in the case of listed buildings

Local councils’ listings of old buildings are worthwhile sources for house histories, but a cautionary note should be entered before counselling researchers to rely heavily on them. Some of the historical details are pretty speculative, as the councils themselves have recently recognised, and revisions are being proposed.  Even so, for a compact, clear statement of the probable age and history of your house, the listings are hard to beat.

In special cases, surveys and rent rolls, and sometimes the church and estate terriers One final category of record to mention covers a range of documents including surveys, rent rolls and terriers (the last being often related to the rector’s glebe lands).

Large landowners occasionally called for a complete review of their holdings, and although perhaps limited in their detail, any such record is likely to be worth a glance.  We found one such (in Latin, of course) in the records of Chelsworth, dated 1632, showing that Edward Archer paid 3s 4d pa in rent to the Lord of the Manor for his house called Clovers.  (He was probably a relative of the George Archer at Cobbolds Mill, and we know that he acquired the house through his wife Marie Abbott.)

One final place to look is in the house itself.  It takes a real expert to date and describe an old house, but you can still look out for details and changes that could tell you what work has been done on the building in years gone by – and you can speculate on the reasons that perhaps lay behind the decision to do the work.

Then there are the sources that can tell you about the people who lived in your house:-

The Parish Registers and National BMD Registers 

Often, local church registers of births, marriages and deaths go back to 1558 – perhaps even earlier.  And once you know who lived in your house, the registers will give you more of a feel for their lives – large numbers of children, often short-lived, and the hazards of childbirth and untreatable diseases.  (If they survive, school log books also carry matter-of-fact but harrowing evidence of the frailty of life in the 19th and early 20th centuries – do see if you can find them.)  The older registers are often hard to read, but from 1813 onwards their format becomes standardised and eminently readable.

The Mormon Church has extracted a quite unbelievable treasury of parish register entries from England – Suffolk and Norfolk are well covered, Essex much less so – and these are freely accessible on their website http://www.familysearch.org

Other websites can give the recorded official details from 1837 onwards – you can pay a modest sum to scan copies of the full annual indexes on http://www.1837online.com, or you might see if http://www.freebmd.org.uk has transcribed yours yet.

For the more distinguished families, of course, there are several books that give extensive family histories.  Muskett’s Suffolk Families sets out family trees for the Chaplins, who at one time or another owned Cobbold’s Mill and Weavers.  There were strong family connections between all the families living in the big houses hereabouts – including the Chaplins, Clovers, Clarkes, Hewetts, Archers and Andrews.

The ten-yearly censuses from 1841 to 1901 

• All the censuses from 1841 to 1901 are now indexed and available for public scrutiny. 
• 1851 is covered for much of Suffolk in the Record Offices.
• The 1881 census is on the Mormon website. 
• 1861 and 1901 are on screen, for a small fee, on the official Government websites – http://www.1837online.com, for 1861, and http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/census, for 1901. 
• 1851, 1871 and 1891 are accessible, again for a small fee, on http://search.ancestry.co.uk. 
• Recently the Origins Network  has announced that it has indexed the 1841 census for Suffolk and Essex via http://www.britishorigins.com

Old Tax Records
Records such as the 1674 Hearth Tax and the 1640 Ship Money lists, which give an indication of the size of houses and the wealth of their owners.

Old Poll Books
These identify the leading citizens entitled to vote (men only, of course) and more recently annual Electoral Registers.  These latter are tiresome to wade through, but occasionally give useful information.

Churchyard InscriptionsMany of these have been transcribed – a valuable service as the old tombstones become illegible.

Trade Directories Publications such as Kelly’s, White’s and Pigot’s, which give details of leading families – in the Court sections – and tradesmen in the Business sections.

Internet Sites Particularly those frequented by families with Suffolk roots.  One particularly interesting site is Ray Long’s Cosford Database on www.cosford-database.co.uk/.

And perhaps the most fascinating, and certainly the most endangered, sources of our history are the personal memories of the old people who lived here before us.  Like the ancient timbers, they have a story to tell that is perhaps the sweetest of all.

Bernard Quinlan
5th May 2005