FIELDWORK
Professor Hoskins, a great populariser of local history and the first head of the newly established department of Local History at Leicester University, once observed that, even if there was a catastrophe in which all the contents of libraries and archives were destroyed, it would still be possible to conduct historical research as long as the researcher had use of their feet and eyes. Thankfully we do not have to contemplate such an apocalyptic scenario, but to restrict one’s research to reading documents and looking at information on microfilm or on a computer screen indoors is a restriction that need not be contemplated. He also commented: ‘You may ransack every source you can think of, printed and manuscript, in all conceivable record offices in England and in your own district: but this is by no means the end of the story.’ Open-air observation is strongly recommended. Anyone who does so is following in the footsteps of many local historians from the Middle Ages onwards, who took delight in making tours in order to gather the necessary information for their written work.
An important series of books will be useful here as guides. These are the architectural surveys of extant buildings (at time of writing) by Nicholas Pevsner and his successors (Buildings of England; Buildings of Scotland). Each covers a single county, though some are subdivided into two or more volumes, and some have been renamed in line with changes in local government – there is no new Middlesex volume, for instance, and some may take a city as their subject. First published in the 1950s and the 1960s by the man himself, there have been more recent (expanded and updated) volumes in the 1990s and 2000s by his successors. These have been far more wide-ranging in coverage of buildings and are no longer restricted to major public buildings, ancient buildings and churches. They give details of architect if applicable, dates and key features and alterations of buildings which were extant at time of writing. The books are generously provided with photographs and maps. Although these books can be expensive to buy, they can often be borrowed from libraries.
Put simply, the task of a survey should probably be undertaken after some of the more traditional research has been undertaken (and on a dry day, so photographs can be taken and buildings viewed leisurely). You should already have a knowledge of which address(es) your ancestors lived in, the school(s) they attended, the church they worshipped at, where they worked and perhaps where they undertook their leisure activities. Armed with these, a detailed modern map, and perhaps an older one (one of the Godfrey edition, perhaps), as well as a camera, you can then visit the place where your ancestors lived.
Walk the streets, use your maps and identify these places. Try and locate them. Photograph them. If the buildings are open to the public go inside, perhaps on Open House weekend (late September; check which buildings are open and when, also to see whether booking is required). Perhaps they belong to the National Trust or English Heritage. If they are churches, try making an appointment with the minister or churchwardens for access (or go when the building is open). Of course, with buildings which are private, prior contact is advisable and if you are fortunate, you may be allowed to visit. When researching for a biography recently I contacted the current owners of my subject’s childhood home, and was pleased that the present occupiers both knew about the former resident (acid bath murderer John George Haigh) in question and invited me to visit. Another researcher I know once visited the house they were interested in in the guise of a prospective buyer, the property then being for sale.
Industrial heritage is another matter. Whilst there is relatively little industry in Britain in the early twenty-first century, industry was a major part of the economy in the nineteenth century and for much of its successor. It was also important in other centuries, too. Mining occurred in the Middle Ages and subsequent centuries. Traces of old tin mines are recognisable in the southwest. From the seventeenth to the twentieth century the textile industry was dominant in Lancashire and the West Riding of Yorkshire.
An instant objection to this line of enquiry may be that times and districts change. Indeed they do; for example, in South Acton, part of the London Borough of Ealing in west London, rows of late nineteenth-century terraced houses were swept away after 1945 by tower blocks. The numerous laundries which existed there (205 in 1900) have also disappeared so that a local historian once observed that one would be more surprised to see a laundry there than a dinosaur.
It is true that many houses from previous centuries have been demolished, often because they were deemed unfit for human habitation, so were compulsorily purchased as part of schemes of slum clearance in the twentieth century. Yet it is rare for every single house to have been destroyed. Often some houses or even whole terraces, perhaps better built or in better condition than others, were retained as being satisfactory or capable of being improved. Ironically, in some cases, the housing which replaced them is being demolished in turn, after having lasted for a shorter period of time than those which initially stood there.
Or buildings may still stand but have been partitioned or are being used for other purposes. The former is often the case with the larger Victorian dwellings, initially built for a single household, with a number of servants and at a time when energy and other costs were relatively inexpensive. They often had spacious grounds. The later twentieth century led to the demise in this form of household and so a reduced demand for the housing it engendered. In some cases, of course, the houses have been demolished and new ones, or flats, built in their place. Or the property is now several residences, with the grounds sometimes built on as well, such is the demand for housing to meet the current population expansion. Or such houses are now used for non-residential purposes, such as a school.
Buildings have changed uses in other ways. Schools in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century, before compulsory education, were often houses in which the schoolmaster once lived. Some redundant churches have been converted into other uses. Although many industrial buildings have ceased to exist, some still do and have been converted for other uses. For example, Dean Clough Mill, which was a major employer in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Halifax, has been converted into small workshops, whilst the exterior has been more or less preserved. Likewise, Halifax’s eighteenth-century Piece Hall, once a major market for textiles, still stands, but is now used by many small businesses and shops.
Military buildings should also be considered. Ancestors who served in the armed forces, Home Guard or militia may well have been stationed in barracks or forts throughout Britain. Thousands of pillboxes, for example, were built on the coastline and elsewhere and you may have discovered that your ancestor manned them, waiting to repel an invasion which never came. Or perhaps they were in the regular forces and were stationed in a major fortification such as Fort Augustus, near Inverness, which though still in use by the military (as it has been since the eighteenth century) is mostly open to the public.
A number of the great country houses, including those still in private hands, such as Syon House, in London, are open to the public for an entry price. It may be objected that most of our ancestors did not own such mansions. But servants’ quarters and kitchens beneath stairs are a major feature of these places, and, with the popularity of dramas such as Downton Abbey, are increasingly of interest and relevance.
It is not just the grand buildings like Castle Howard, Blenheim Palace and Basildon Park which can be viewed as a matter of course. Open-air museums, such as Beamish in the north of England and the Chiltern Open Air Museum in Buckinghamshire, are comprised of ordinary domestic buildings, including a toll house of the eighteenth century, prefabs of the 1940s and farmyard barns. Some of these buildings, or at least part of them, are designated as museums, with period furniture, explanation boards and informative guides.
Kitchen of Audley End, 2014. (Author)
Even buildings which are still used for their original purpose, such as some of the older public schools, the older Oxbridge colleges, cathedrals and churches, for instance, are not unchanged. Internal as well as external building fabric has often changed. A medieval church, where ancestors were wed in the sixteenth century (as ascertained from the parish registers) and which was not rebuilt by Gilbert Scott in the nineteenth century, will not have remained the same over time. There may have been damage caused by the Puritans in the seventeenth century; medieval wall paintings whitewashed during the sixteenth-century reformation may have been revealed in the nineteenth; pews may have been replaced by chairs or reduced in number in the twentieth century. A perusal of the church history or the appropriate entry in Pevsner’s architectural guide should indicate the alterations over time. They should also explain the features which were extant at the time of your ancestors, and which they would have known.
For those whose ancestors spent time in a workhouse, the preserved workhouse at Southwell in Nottinghamshire, now cared for by the National Trust, may be worth seeing. It was built in 1824 and was a model for later structures. There is also the Workhouse Museum at Gressenhall, Norfolk.
There have been a number of laws passed to prevent historic buildings from being demolished (former ages had no such compunction about the demolition of older buildings to make way for newer ones). In 1877 the Society for the Preservation of Ancient Buildings was founded and in 1882 the first relevant piece of legislation was passed. This was the Ancient Monuments Protection Act and listed 29 buildings in England and 21 in Scotland that were now protected by law. A further Act in 1913 created the Ancient Monuments Board which had inspectors and commissioners to list buildings of national importance. They also recorded other significant buildings, which were not deemed of national importance but were still worthy of protection. The Historic Buildings and Monuments Act of 1931 enabled the Ministry of Works to issue immediate preservation notices on the recommendation of the previously exiting boards.
Powers were devolved on local government with the 1944 Town and Country Planning Act. In each local government district there was drawn up a list of historically important buildings classified by grade. Grade I buildings were those of such importance that they should never be destroyed; they are rare. Grade II* are more common, and are not to be demolished without very good reason. There are also Grade II buildings, which have less protection. However, such protection can be revoked and so demolition can then go ahead – this often happens where buildings are decayed and the necessary renovation would be so expensive that destruction seems the lesser evil. Lists of such buildings should be available on the website of county and borough councils. Some listings also list additional buildings or groups of buildings which are seen as being of value but are not statutorily listed. By 2015 there were 376,099 listed buildings in England and Wales.
Whitchurch Silk Mill, Hampshire, 2014. (Author)
Industrial buildings were added to the list of potentially protected structures in 1953 and in 1962 an Act was passed enabling local authorities to make grants for the protection of such buildings. A new definition of what could be preserved was created in 1979 with the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act. This made it possible for almost any building to be deemed historic and worthy of protection.
In 1967 the Conservation Act led to local authorities being able, if they wished, to designate a number of districts in their jurisdiction as conservation zones. Sometimes local groups, often residents’ associations or conservation societies, would petition their council to have a particular district given this status. Districts chosen often included obvious places such as the houses around village greens, but could also include innovative housing developments of more recent times. This legislation gave protection to the buildings in that district and planning restrictions were tighter than elsewhere; for instance hedgerows and other key features could not be removed, and external changes to houses were limited.
Monumental inscription at St Peter’s church, Iver, 2015. (Author)
Memorials in churches have an obvious interest to the family historian. But though very few people are represented by such memorials because of their cost, they are still of importance to those whose families were less affluent. They can often reveal much about local circumstances. For example in St Peter’s church in Iver, Buckinghamshire, there is a memorial to 12 children who died between 1704 and 1720. This is symptomatic of the high rate of infant mortality, even among the relatively wealthy, at this time.
There are two major national organisations which do much to preserve the country’s built heritage. These are the National Trust and English Heritage. Both are charities dependent on donations and subscriptions of members and admission fees from others. The former was founded in 1895. Country houses built in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were being demolished in the post-Second World War years when families could no longer afford their upkeep. Fortunately these charities were able to acquire some of them, usually with endowments, from families who no longer wished – or were able – to own them. This gave them a new lease of life from tourists and also being used as backdrops for films and TV productions.
English Heritage was founded in 1983 as the government’s statutory adviser on the historic environment, with 16 commissioners, and was advised by 13 specialist committees. It also served to advise local authorities on the management of their responsibilities and provided grants for the regeneration of places in need.
Their portfolios also include ruined castles and ecclesiastical buildings dating from the Middle Ages and beyond. It is important to remember that these preserved sites are very unrepresentative of the dwellings that our ancestors lived in. Most people resided in far more modest houses in towns and villages and these ordinary houses rarely survive or are still being lived in. For instance two twentieth-century suburban houses in Liverpool, childhood homes of John Lennon and Paul McCartney, were only acquired by the National Trust because of their former famous occupants.
Let us take a building that would have been central in your ancestors’ lives for centuries: the parish church. Now, it is impossible to elbow our way into the past; the past is not an experiment that can be repeated.
St Peter’s church in Iver would be described as a medieval church. Certainly there was a church on this site since the eleventh century. Yet it is not a museum and should be viewed as being an organic structure, which has features of many periods. On the north side of the nave there is a double splayed window with pinkish sandstone, which, as the former curate never tired as telling visitors and congregation alike, was late Saxon and the oldest visible part of the church. Much of the body of the church and tower is thirteenth century.
Yet many of the church’s features are of other periods. The font is Norman, for instance. The pulpit, decorated with cherub heads and garlands, is seventeenth century. The stained glass is late Victorian and Edwardian. The top of the tower is late medieval and the bells chiefly date from the eighteenth century. The monuments and memorials in the church are of a variety of dates. That of Richard Blount, in armour, with his family dates from 1508, and there is an early seventeenth-century memorial to John King, slain by a kinsman, Roger Parkinson. The vestry was added in the late 1890s and a century later a kitchen and social space was added next to it. There is the inevitable children’s corner of toys, dating from recent years.
St Peter’s church, Iver, 2015. (Author)
All this does not mean that a visit is worthless, but that the visitor should study their Pevsner in advance and be on their guard, realising that some of the church may well postdate their ancestors’ knowledge of it. Generally speaking, exteriors are better preserved than interiors, but drastic alterations can and did occur; the remodelling of St Mary’s church in Ealing in the mid-Victorian era has completely obscured the box Georgian church onto which a basilica was grafted.
Even towns and villages which might appear to have been wholly altered by radical changes in the twentieth century are not wholly lost causes as far as local and family history is concerned. Crawley, an apparently unprepossessing New Town of the 1950s, has kept its charming High Street, resplendent with centuries-old hostelries (one now an Italian chain restaurant) and parish church. It is not, therefore, just the ‘historic’ towns and cities (e.g. York, Chester, Oxford, etc.) in which the buildings of the past remain. Seek and ye might find.