Popular television programmes are highlighting the satisfaction that can
be gained from investigating the history of houses, and interest in the
subject is growing. Archives, too, are becoming ever more accessible
under the impetus of the internet. As the subject covers a broad field,
the authors have set out to include advice on those aspects that usually
apply to a project and others that will be of particular use for
beginners. The reader is guided through every stage of research, from
the first exploration of the archives to the completion of the project.
Suggestions are also included on how to present the findings - a house
history makes a very attractive gift. The authors describe how to deduce
the age of a property (it is very seldom directly recorded when a house
was built) and characteristics of research on particular types of
property - such as cottages, manor houses, inns, mills, former church
properties, and farms - are discussed. In one example, research
demonstrated that a farm was likely to have been a Domesday manor - a
discovery achieved using records accessible to any beginner.