Tracing the histories of homes, and the people who once lived in them, has got to be one of the most evocative means of travelling back in time. Helen Tovey, Editor of Family Tree Magazine, shares some of the joys of investigating house history.
Our homes, in all their shapes, sizes and varieties, form the backdrops to our lives. Last May we moved house to an interwar semi – the sort of classic three-bed that so many millions of us live in across the UK. And it intrigues me. I just know that its relatively short and ordinary history will turn out to be anything but as I begin to look into its past. This is because each of our lives are a beguiling mix of typical patterns and events, and also unusual twists and turns in life that are specific to each of us too.
Our little semi is the 24th house or flat I’ve lived in (not including a stint living with my grandparents as a toddler, or my halls of residence in the first year of uni). Thirteen of these were in the first eighteen years of my life as we followed the drum of my father’s Army career. Often homes on windy former air bases, Crittall windows icing up, utility through and through, furnished with Army issue G-Plan. Large gardens and greens for swarms of children to play out communally, where dustbin lids were shields, bicycles were turned upside down into makeshift ‘spinning wheels’, dens were dug and treehouses made. The height of luxury, and the envy of neighbours, being an old tyre suspended from a tree, on the green, where everyone could play on it - but you’d know that it was your dad who had invented this marvellous toy. Meanwhile my mum would be in the kitchen wrestling with the twin tub and big wooden tongs and frequently our childhood baths would be by candlelight (due to electricity strikes and the Three Day Week) – this was the 1970s.
Why do all these memories matter? It’s because the histories of homes, and the people who once lived in them, have got to be one of the most evocative means of travelling back in time, and gaining a better understanding of life in the past - our ancestors’ lives.
Did your great-grandparents live in a multi-occupancy tenement – with the struggle and juggle to prepare the family meal using shared cooking facilities, when all the men came home from shift at the same time? What was it like to try to nurse a feverish child to sleep with clatters and chat coming through the all too skimpy walls? Or did they live on a family farm, cade lambs keeping warm by the range, fresh eggs fetched in, and layers of woolly home knits the order of the day?
What is excellent news, is that when undertaking to trace the history of a house, many of the same records that are used for family history can be put to use to research the history of a home – the census, old maps, and – of course – where possible, talking to family, neighbours, former inhabitants.
Since moving to our new house last year, I’ve chatted to the neighbours and realise that our home used to have a (proportionately) massive pantry – about a quarter of the size of the living room. While I was gardening a long-standing villager stopped to tell me how he used to live in our house as a lad, and at the time the garden was about twice as long and his father used to fill it with rows of veg, but the bottom half was sold off for a road to the estate nearby built in the 1990s. I’ve read and read and have learned that our lane is named after a former much-loved village school headmaster. And I’ve also been interested to discover that when the villagers were interviewed as to what they’d be looking for in a home in the 1920s they were very keen to have a front parlour. Contrary to the impression that I’ve so often heard – that this was to be a room to be primly kept for best – the consensus was that such a room was vital, whether for the young people to ‘hang out in’ (that last phrase is mine!), or to nurse family members, particularly older ones, so that they would have a room on the ground floor and not have to manage the stairs. I was also amused to discover that when the same villagers were asked for their thoughts on a bathroom they weren’t too fussed and didn’t see that as a necessity at all! That tin bath and privy were just fine.
So whether it’s the home you currently live in, or the home of your ancestors, I cannot recommend highly enough for you to take a look and see what you can uncover about the stories of these homes in times gone by.
How to begin a house history
There are three very easy places to begin.
- As mentioned and demonstrated above – talk to former inhabitants.
- Look at the census – study the census page carefully for details. Are many people dwelling in one house? Are there live-in servants? What are the ages and occupations of the inhabitants? What do the birth places tell you about the community – are they people who have moved for work, perhaps, or established networks of families who have long lived in that place? The Victorian era is famed for its building works – are there dwellings in the process of being built? Why might the street have been so named?
- Look at old maps. It’s useful, just as with family history, to work backwards in time. Road names and layouts do evolve over time, and you’ll find it easier to orientate yourself if you start with the present, note some landmarks (such as the parish church, or a bend in the river), and then track down as many maps as you can – every few decades – until you reach the time period you’re interested in. (www.oldmapsonline.org is an excellent hub of map resources with maps from all over the globe).
Electoral rolls, old newspapers, and the 1939 Register will also make very valuable hunting ground for your 20th century research. Of course, this is just the beginning; these are just some of the questions you can begin to ask yourself, just some of the places you can look.
The House History Show
For the House History Show sponsored by Chimni on 15 May Family Tree has teamed up with the House History Hour team and we are absolutely delighted to be showcasing their presentations. Find the full programme here: https://www.family-tree.co.uk/how-to-guides/house-history/house-history-show-go-to-orientation-page/
The speakers comprise the UK’s leading house historians: onscreen contributor and historical consultant Prof Deborah Sugg Ryan and house historian & research consultant Melanie Backe-Hansen from the BBC TV series ‘A House Through Time’; buildings historian and heritage research consultant Karen Averby; historical researcher, author and house historian Gill Blanchard; author, broadcaster and historian Dr Nick Barratt; house historian, author and genealogist Keith Searle of Tracemyhouse; heritage consultant and house historian Ellen Leslie; and accredited genealogist and house historian Cathy Soughton.
Tickets to the House History Show cost £45 for an all-inclusive ticket to the show on 15 May, and the subsequent summer lecture series. Tickets to individual lectures £10.
To find out more or book tickets, please see: https://www.family-tree.co.uk/how-to-guides/house-history/
Any queries – please email Helen Tovey at Family Tree.
Any queries – please email Helen Tovey at Family Tree.
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