Finding Out The Year When A House Was Built.

[anotheoldgit]

Short of possessing the deeds of the house, how can one find out the year, a certain house was built?

[retrocop]

I suppose,for a fee,a Land Registry enquiry maybe.

[Mamyalynne]

Some ideas here.

https://hmlandregistry.blog.gov.uk/2018/01/26/how-old-is-my-house/

[anotheoldgit]

Thank you both for your answers.

[retrocop]

A pleasure Mr aog.

[New Judge]

I have the deeds to my house. They show no details of when it was built and no details of previous sales or transfers.

[jackthehat]

These O.S. maps might be able to help.

https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=16&lat=53.5767&lon=-2.8667&layers=171&;b=1

[jno]

yes we tracked ours down with the help of OS maps. Before that, your ibrary might have some historical details of the district

[Peter Pedant]

for much older houses
you have to do something like this


local records - kelly's directories, tithe maps and so on

Caroline Quentin's arcitectural historian ( dates by style ) is pretty useless (doesnt know his dates)
but abbey road episode is 1600
Salop Farm - main house 1780 on style grounds
and kitchen block 1490!
The Mill - referred to in 1285 - but clearly not that building

For a house I bought in Brum - I found the original garden planting schedule ! ( 1929) in a drawer - I wondered if the seller knew what it was....

[gulliver1]

N/J 16.21 are you sure your deeds are genuine? maybe you have been conned.

[New Judge]

Yes I'm quite sure. And to be clear, when I mentioned "title deeds" in my earlier answer I was referring to the Land Registry record that I have a paper copy of, not the original deeds.

As you can see from the Land Registry link, the age of a house is not necessarily recorded by them. More than that "Title Deeds" are now largely redundant. The Land Registry digitalised all its records some time ago and the paper deeds are gradually being phased out. Here's a snippet from their website:

"If the property was already registered when you bought it, the seller may not have handed over the original deeds. There’s no requirement for them to do so. Tracing the original deeds for a property that has been bought and sold many times is likely to be an impossible task."

[Jackdaw33]

One interesting way is to use local observation. At the top of my street there is a pillar box which bears the monogram E VII R. As King Edward

[Jackdaw33]

...to continue, as King Edward VII reigned from 1901- 1910 I can safely conclude that the houses were built in that decade.

[New Judge]

Not quite so precise when you see "VR" (few still extant now) or "ER" postboxes, JD !

[anotheoldgit]

Jackdaw33

/// ...to continue, as King Edward VII reigned from 1901- 1910 I can safely conclude that the houses were built in that decade. ///

Not necessary the house could have been built prior to the introduction of the post box.

[dance2trance]

When I was looking at a census from 1850s on line it said what the properties were used as eg private house, or hotel, or tannery. My place was a boarding house ie rooms were rented to tenants. Besides which I can date a house or whatever very accurately by virtue of my knowledge of historic building styles. Ask an architect!