Every building, whatever its age, has a story to tell. This handout outlines the sources available at Oldham Local Studies and Archives that might unlock the history of the property you are interested in.
No one source on its own will provide the whole story but by using several sources it may be possible to trace the owners and occupiers of the property; see what trades, if any, were undertaken in the property; understand the uses which the property was put to; even locate original plans of the property. You never know what you may discover but you will certainly be able to build up a picture of the property within the community and its environment, and see how it has evolved over time to make it what it is today.
Oldham Local Studies and Archives holds several books which will provide you with an introduction to tracing the history of the property and to the many archive sources available:
It may also be useful to obtain one of the many books which describe the development of British architectural styles, and which can help you to identify roughly the period in which the property was built:
If the property is a listed building you will find it in Listed Buildings & Conservation Areas in the Oldham Metropolitan Borough. Please ask a member of staff if you wish to consult it. Frozen Music by Jane Taylor (MIF:F) provides a brief guide to listed buildings in the Oldham Metropolitan Borough.
The National Monuments Records holds extensive additional information, including photographs, surveys, and detailed descriptions of buildings of historic or architectural interest including those within the Oldham Metropolitan Borough. Information about this service can be found on the English Heritage website: www.imagesofengland.org.uk. Print-outs are available at Oldham Local Studies and Archives.
If the property is or was a farm, it should appear in the National Farm Survey taken in 1941-3 when all working farms were surveyed as part of the war effort. The resulting documentation included information such as occupancy, the state of the farm, livestock, and general management. A plan of the farm was also produced, depicting boundaries and fields. All these records are held at the Public Record Office in London. An Information Leaflet is available online at the National Archives website.
Title deeds to the property may record owners and occupiers of houses and other useful information. They may also indicate who owned the land before the building of the property.
If you do not have the title deeds to the property, they may be with a solicitor or mortgage company. However, their survival is not guaranteed, for the Law of Property Act 1925 limited the need for evidence of title to 30 years, and due to recent changes in Land Registration, title deeds are no longer legally required. However, it is possible that the title deeds to your house may have been deposited at the Lytham District Land Registry, Birkenhead House, East Beach, Lytham St Annes, Lancs, FY8 5AB Tel: 01253 840012.
For further information on Land Registration, visit the Land Registration website.
Oldham Local Studies and Archives holds some title deeds, lists of which can be found in the archive folders.
It should be possible to locate the property on successive editions of Ordnance Survey Maps. These maps can give an indication of when your property was built, and show what the area was like in the past.
Oldham Local Studies and Archives holds 1:1250 and 1:2500 scale maps dating from the 1950s to the present (Map Cabinets One (Reserve) and Two); editions of 25" maps dating from the 1870s to the 1930s (Map Cabinet Four); and 6" scale maps dating from 1848/1851 (Map Cabinet Four).
Parts of Oldham are covered by larger scale 5ft to 1 mile maps dating from 1848 (Map Cabinet Four), and Crompton, Oldham and Royton town centres by 10ft to 1 mile maps dating from 1879 and 1891/2 (Map Cabinet Five (Reserve)).
If your property was built before Ordnance Survey Maps were published it may appear on a Tithe Apportionment Map. These were produced as a result of the Tithe Commutation Act of 1836 under which payment of tithes in kind was replaced by a fixed monetary sum. The scheme produced a Tithe Apportionment Map of each parish showing the properties liable to tithes and an accompanying Tithe Apportionment Schedule listing landowner, occupier, plot number, and name and description of premises. The Tithe Apportionments for Oldham and district were compiled in the 1840s.
Copies of the Tithe Apportionment Maps for Failsworth, Chadderton, Crompton, Oldham and Royton can be found in Map Cabinet Four. The Tithe Apportionment Schedule for Failsworth can be found in Map Drawer One (Reserve); for Chadderton at SGK:FX (Oversize Reserve); for Crompton SGK:FV (Oversize Reserve); and for Oldham and Royton at SGK:F:FW (Oversize Reserve).
The Saddleworth Tithe Apportionment Map and Schedule can be consulted at West Yorkshire Archives Service at Registry of Deeds, Newstead Road, Wakefield WF1 2DE, tel: 01924 305980, www.archives.wyjs.org.uk.
Oldham Local Studies and Archives also holds a detailed map of the township of Oldham surveyed by William Dunn in 1829 and known as Dunn’s Map of Oldham. The layout is similar to that of the tithe map. Buildings and land are numbered, and accompanying schedules provide information on landowners, occupiers, descriptions of land and properties.
A copy of Dunn’s Map of Oldham can be found in Map Cabinet Four, while a copy of the schedules can be found at SGK:F (Oversize Reserve).
It is also possible that the property may appear on an Enclosure Map and an accompanying Enclosure Award. There were piecemeal enclosures taking land out of common use and into private hands from the 16th century onwards, but the major enclosures occurred in the 18th and 19th centuries. An enclosure of the commons of Oldham took places in 1804, and for Saddleworth in 1834. The Enclosure Maps show how the various commons were divided among local freeholders, and include properties involved in the enclosure. They are accompanied by an Enclosure Award detailing the land awarded.
A copy of the Enclosure Map for Oldham can be found in Map Cabinet Four, and the Enclosure Award at SGO:F (Oversize Reserve).
A copy of the Enclosure Map for Saddleworth can be found in Map Drawer One. and the Enclosure Award at SGO:FZ (Reserve). These records are also available on microfilm (MF-G24).
Having identified the property on maps, it may then be possible to compile a list of owner and occupiers. Burgess Rolls/Electoral Registers list people registered to vote in local and national elections, and can be useful for finding previous residents at an address. Oldham Local Studies and Archives holds Burgess Rolls/Electoral Registers dating from 1850 to the present day. These are available in the public area. However not everyone has been eligible to vote in the past, and not all Burgess Rolls/Electoral Registers covering Failsworth, Chadderton, Crompton, Oldham, Royton and Saddleworth have survived.
For further details about eligibility and coverage, please consult our hand-out relating to Burgess Rolls/Electoral Registers.
Trade Directories were published in large numbers during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. They are useful for finding the names of people who lived in and traded from particular houses and for locating previous uses of buildings. The private addresses of wealthier residents were often listed as well. However, not every house or building was listed, and it is important to remember that house numbers may have changed since the Trade Directories were compiled.
Oldham Local Studies and Archives holds Trade Directories from 1814 onwards and these provide listings by trade, address or surname. These are available in the public area.
For further details, please consult our hand-out relating to Trade Directories.
Information concerning occupiers of the property may also be found in Census Returns. The first official national census for Britain took place in 1801, and they have been taken every 10 years ever since, apart from 1941. The censuses taken between 1801 and 1831 only recorded basic information such as the number of people living in a parish. However, from 1841 more information was included such as names or addresses of properties, and the names of occupants with their occupations and ages.
Oldham Local Studies and Archives holds microfilm copies of the censuses from 1841 - 1901. Street and surname indexes are available. The 1881 census can also be searched on-line at www.familysearch.org.
Rate Books can be particularly useful for tracing the names of owners and householders, and previous uses of buildings. Properties are usually listed by street and include the names of both owners and occupiers, usually the head of the household, and were compiled on an annual basis. Consequently changes of owner and occupant can be traced by comparing the information in the most recent rate books with that in earlier books.
Following the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834, Poor Law Unions replaced the parish as the organisers of poor relief, and rates were levied and collected by the Poor Law Union. These are known as Poor Rates. Other rates were collected by local authorities and included Borough or General Rates. In 1930 these rates were replaced by a single General Rate.
Oldham Local Studies and Archives holds a large collection of Rate Books for Failsworth, Chadderton, Crompton, Oldham and Royton, although their survival is rather patchy. Surviving Rate Books are listed in the County Borough of Oldham and Urban District Council archive folders.
Almost all of the Rate Books are stored away from Union Street. If you wish to look at any of the above Rate Books please contact the Archives Officer. However, some early Rate Books have been microfilmed. For availability please see the Microfilm List.
Rate Books from before 1834 are usually found among parish records. These include Poor Rate, Church Rate and Highway Rate Books and may also record owners or occupiers and names of properties.
Oldham Local Studies and Archives holds microfilm copies of Poor Rates, Church Rates and Highway Rates from 1681-1817 (MF-G41-43, 47-49), although some years are missing and not all areas are covered.
Some pre-1834 Rate Books are listed in the Urban District Council archive folders.
As part of its Finance Bill of 1909, the Government introduced a new taxation on land values. For this tax to be implemented, a valuation of all land carried out by the Inland Revenue was necessary, giving rise to the series of records known as the 1910 Domesday Books.
Although the Valuation Books are arranged by property number, most sets of Books have a street index, and the forms from which the Books are drawn are arranged by street. The Books include owners and occupiers, together with a description of the property.
The Valuation Books for Chadderton, Crompton, Failsworth, Oldham and Royton are held at Greater Manchester County Record Office, 56 Marshall Street, New Cross, Manchester M4 5FU, Tel: (0)161 832 5284 www.gmcro.co.uk.
The Land Tax replaced the Hearth Tax (see below) in 1696 and continued in existence until 1963. Compiled on a yearly basis, it records the names of owners and occupiers, and includes descriptions of property.
Oldham Local Studies and Archives holds Land Tax records on microfilm from 1707 to 1832 for Oldham (MF-G49-51), and from 1780 - 1832 for Failsworth, Chadderton, Crompton, and Royton (MF-G133-135), although some years are missing.
The Hearth Tax was introduced in 1662 to raise money for the recently restored monarchy of Charles II, and was based upon the number of hearths or fireplaces in a property. These records can be useful for tracing householders’ names and estimating the size of their properties. The hearth tax records are mostly held at the Public Record Office in London, but Oldham Local Studies and Archives holds photocopies of the Hearth Tax for Crompton, Oldham and Royton for the years 1662, 1664 and 1666 (IFG:F:FV:FW Pamphlets); and for Chadderton, Crompton, Oldham and Royton for the years 1671 (IFG:F:FV:FW:FX Pamphlets).
It may be possible to locate a plan of the property among local government Building Regulation Plans, which had to be submitted by developers before any building could take place. Oldham Local Studies and Archives holds a large number of Building Regulation Plans from the 1850s onwards. They are listed in the County Borough of Oldham and Urban District Council archive folders. A card catalogue index is also available. Even if the property was built before 1850, there may be a plan relating to a later alteration or addition which may include the whole building.
It is possible that a plan of the property may be found amongst collections of Architectural Plans, such as the Stott collection. Although mainly concerned with mill plans this collection does contain some drawings of other types of property. These plans are listed in the Stott Architectural Practices archive folders, and are available on microfiche.
Wills, Inventories and Accounts can provide important information about properties and the people who lived in them. Inventories are particularly useful as they may include room-by-room descriptions of houses and their contents, and possessions of the occupant.
Oldham Local Studies and Archives holds indexes for Wills proved at Chester between 1547 and 1837. Original documents can be consulted at Lancashire Record Office, Bow Lane, Preston, Lancashire, PR1 2RE, tel: 01772 533039.
A number of Wills, mainly from the Saddleworth area, have been deposited in the Photocopied Wills Collection for which a surname index is available.
Wills and administrations granted in England and Wales from 11 January 1858 can be consulted at the Principal Registry of the Family Division, First Avenue House, 42 - 49 High Holborn, London, WC1V 6NP. Annual indexes (called national probate calendars) to wills and letters of administration (admons) have been produced and these can also be consulted at First Avenue House. Please note that First Avenue House does not deal with postal enquiries - these should be sent instead to - York Probate Sub-Registry, Duncombe Place, York YO1 2EA. You must give details of the deceased's name, date of death and last permanent address.
Registers of baptisms, marriages and burials may refer to the place of residence and occupation of the individual.
Oldham Local Studies and Archives holds microfilm copies of parish registers from 1558. Unfortunately, the early entries are of little use as only names are listed. However, references to properties and occupations are included from about 1650 onwards (MF-R25-46). For further details please consult our hand-out relating to Parish Registers.
There may also be information regarding the inhabitants of the property in other parish records such as Churchwardens’ and Overseers’ Accounts; and Militia Lists. For a list of parish records for St Mary’s Oldham, please see the red folder entitled ‘Oldham Ecclesiastical Records held at Manchester Archives & Local Studies’ Volume 4/29.
Some of these records are held on microfilm at Oldham Local Studies and Archives. Please see the Microfilm List for details.
Oldham Local Studies and Archives holds a large collection of photographs of buildings and streets in Oldham dating from the end of the 19th century to the present day for which a subject guide is available. A selection of photographs have been digitised on the Oldham Image Bank.
Oldham Local Studies and Archives hold an extensive collection of newspaper cuttings containing articles on local buildings, for which a subject index is available. In addition there are a number of printed local histories, such as History of Oldham by James Butterworth, 1817 (F) and Historical Sketches of Oldham by Edwin Butterworth, 1856 (F), which contain descriptions of older properties. In addition there are a number of books dealing with buildings in particular areas such as Saddleworth Buildings: A Guide to the Vernacular Architecture of the Parish of Saddleworth in the Pennines by W John Smith (MI:FZ)
There may also be books and pamphlets that will describe the historical background to the property, and enable you to attempt to understand the historical forces that moulded the lives of the inhabitants. A card catalogue and a searchable on-line database of all books and pamphlets are available in the public area.