Historic Copies of House Deeds

I have been in correspondence with the North Riding of Yorkshire County Records Office (NRYCRO) with the aim of obtaining copies of the house deeds for some houses that I believe my great grandfather Thomas Coverdale built and owned.

NRYCRO have advised that: "I'm afraid that searching the registry from 1871 through to August 1970 for a single address is not possible as the registry is only indexed by party (vendor only until 1879) and by township (until 1965)." This seems a bit odd as it seems to defeat the purpose of doing a search. Perhaps it is easier if you are there in person to trawl through the records, but it's not as easy when searching from a distance.

What I was after were the deeds to Nos 1 - 4 Railway Terrace, Sowerby, Thirsk as there is a family story that these were owned by Thomas. Nos 1 and 4 were definitely owned by my grandmother (his daughter) until her death in 1955.

Anyway, thanks to the NRYCRO, I have now obtained the deeds from when the land was originally subdivided in 1871 and these show that Francis Pattison, shoemaker, bought a large parcel of land once known as Bell House Field. He then parceled up the land and sold it as follows:

Plots 1 & 2 to John B Curtiss
Plot 3 to Charles Goodill
Plot 4 to Richard King
Plots 5 & 6 to Tomas Coverdale

No doubt there were other plots, but the records I have do not go that far.

Unfortunately none of the Memorials of sale include a copy of the plot layout, so I have no idea of the whereabouts of the land in relation to the new street, although logic would say that plot 1 would be No 1, plot 2 No 2 etc. Hah, another theory bites the dust!

The 1881 census has the following people living in Railway Terrace:

No 1 William Richardson
No 2 Richard King and family
No 3 Alfred Busfield and family
No 4 Thomas Coverdale and family

Through to 1911, the only families that are consistent residents are the Kings at No 2 and the Coverdales (or descendants) at No 4.

I spent a few hours this last weekend looking through old newspapers on Find My Past, hoping to see an advertisement for the original sale to no avail (but I did see a few articles concerning the state of the drains in Railway Terrace up until the turn of the century and a whole lot of other irrelevant but interesting stories. )

Does anyone know of any other way of finding out who owned a property way back when? It's not a huge problem and not worth spending loads of money to sort out. It would just be nice to sort out yet another family story/myth.

 

I have not yet had reason to consult memorials from the Yorkshire or Middlesex registries, but am not surprised by their being arranged by personal name: the land charges register is similarly indexed.
For the earlier part of the period, registers of electors may help. Around 1911 there was the Lloyd George Domesday survey. For large estates (over an acre) the 1873 returns of owners of land are useful. More of a long shot is to buy copies of the title to such parts of the land as have been registered; these may name previous owners who entered into restrictive covenants or granted or received easements.

 

Thanks, Jeremy and Alexander. I think Jeremy's idea might be the way to go - depends on the cost, although I can see I will be spending several hours on the Scotland map site - another one to be bookmarked!

 

As I understand it, paper deeds are no longer used, details are to be stored digitally. It would be good if solicitors could deposit them with some organisation willing to archive, if the vendor or new owner had no interest in them.

 

That has been the case here in NZ for some time, but the old deeds have been scanned and electronic copies of the full ownership history of properties are available. However, a surveyor acquaintance has said that that some of the background documentation has not been kept in some cases.

 

Could have been the case here in UK for some time? When I aquired my present property in 2001, the deeds were just handed over to me by the solicitor(no mortgage) but maybe the ownership was recorded electronically back then? Doubt the documents were scanned though.