Agricultural History Review, Volume 52 Part 2 (2004), p. 210

I know from experience that tracing the history of a house is not a straightforward task. The person who finds a good run of records is fortunate indeed. More often, there are maddening gaps in the archives. Yet tracing the history of the house that you live in and finding out as much as you can about previous occupiers has become an enthusiasm shared by all sorts of interested amateurs. This guide is undoubtedly their best starting point.

Dr Alcock is a leading authority on vernacular architecture who combines surveying skills with an expertise in the study of relevant documents. His Old title deeds is the standard guide and his study of the houses and people of Stoneleigh is exemplary. He does all this in his spare time as a professor of chemistry at Warwick University.

Here he starts by identifying the key questions and emphasizing that knowing the type of house being studied is an essential pre-requisite to deciding what sort of documents may be significant. The search then begins with maps: Ordnance Survey, tithe and enclosure, estate, 1910 Valuation, 1940–43 National Farm Survey etc, followed by documentary sources including land tax and rate assessments, directories, electoral registers, estate rentals and hearth tax returns. The next chapter provides a succinct account of title deeds and miscellaneous individual documents. The emphasis then turns to understanding the social context and lifestyles of the occupants who have been identified, using wills and inventories, parish registers etc, though, surprisingly, census returns are mentioned only in passing. A chapter on the history of housing that places individual buildings in a wider context is followed by the most useful history review chapter in the book which deals with several case studies, showing how to do it. Footnotes and a guide to further reading and resources complete the text.