INTRODUCTION
This is a step-by-step guide for those who would like to carry out research into the history of their house in West Bridgford.
First, we work back in time from today to find out what used to be there before your house was built. Then, we reverse our path, working back to today, to find out who owned or lived there. In what follows, you can click on coloured text to go to the corresponding web page.
West Bridgford covers a large area, so not everything here may apply to your house. Please let us know if you find any errors in this guide or have suggestions to improve it.
NOTTINGHAM INSIGHT MAPPING
A really good way to get started is with the Nottinghamshire Insight Mapping web site. However, you may sometimes find it slow to respond as it sifts through all the maps it holds and builds up its display. After you have clicked to agree to their terms and conditions, you will be presented with a screen showing a map of the county.
You then enter the address of your house into the box in the top left hand of the screen, click on “Search”.
If the house no longer exists, then you can search using a grid reference. This is what we will be doing in the example below. We will search for information about the Toll House that used to be at the junction of Musters Road and Melton Road.
Fortunately, the Toll House had a bench mark engraved on it and we can find the grid reference from the Bench Mark Database. The resulting display shows the site of your house marked with a red dot on a modern road map.
You can change your view by using the zoom facility, on the right of the green box in the top left hand corner, or move the map by clicking and dragging on the image. The “Map key / legend” box at the bottom right of the screen can also be collapsed by clicking on the arrow at its top right.
Having checked that your house is where you expected it to be on the modern road map, we can now search for its location on historical maps. The results can be a little surprising at times. The Insight database is a jigsaw collection of maps from different dates. Sometimes you will see there is a gap in the display because there is no map for that area at the time of the other maps being displayed. Also, individual maps can prove difficult to track down: the Insight web site does not tell you which map or the date of the map that you are viewing. Nonetheless, the results can be very satisfying.
Click on the box labelled “Road Map” and then click on “Historical” in the options that appear. The new display shows the position of your house on the earliest map in the Insight database, at a rather larger scale than the road map display.
In the case of the Toll House, the red dot is not exactly where it should be – you can see the house is a little to the west. That is because the grid reference is not sufficiently precise.
Since it is easiest to start with what we know, we now need to move to the most recent map. Go to the slider above the dates and slide it as far to the right as possible.
There may now be a considerable delay until the most modern map is displayed. In what follows, there may also be delays, if the area is made up of several maps, while the display is prepared for abutting regions. After some zooming and re-positioning, this is what we see for the toll house.
Now we are ready to step back in time. Click on the left arrow of the slider to be taken back each step. For the Toll House, we see little change. Then the third results in a blank screen, presumably because there is no map available for the area at that particular time. At last, on the 4th click it starts to become more interesting, showing at least a gap where the Toll House used to be.
The date on the slider gives a rough indication of when the map was produced: here its shows 1937 or 1940. If you want to be more precise as to the date, then you can compare with the Ordnance Survey maps on the Society’s web site or at the National Library of Scotland’s collection.
Continuing back in time, it is not until the 6th click that the Toll House appears.
We also see how the road junction of Rectory Road with Melton Road had changed with the creation of Musters Road.
One more click and we are back to the oldest map but, thanks to our earlier zooming, with more of the surrounding area visible than on our initial visit.
You can see the old field layout with identification numbers. The Toll House is in the south-eastern corner of field 230. This can now be compared with the 1838 tithe map. The Society’s web site has a copy of the full map and also the central area. The numbers used on the two maps are different, but by comparing the field shapes, we can see that the field is numbered 256 on the tithe map. By looking at the corresponding list of occupiers, we find that the field was known as Burton Close and the tenant from the Musters Estate was Thomas Bates. This marks the start of our journey back to the present day.
But before we take that journey, we can look for historical photographs taken from the air at the Britain From Above web site.
When you are on their web site, you can click on the flag to find out when the photograph was taken (1935 or 1938) and see a thumbnail photo. Clicking on the thumbnail yields a larger photo. Unfortunately, the area of the Toll House is too far away from where these photographs were taken to be seen. However, you may be more lucky. Also, remember the Society’s web site has a collection of old photographs.
If your house was built during the time of the West Bridgford Urban District Council (1895-1974) you should be able to locate the associated planning application and, perhaps, architect’s drawings at the Nottinghamshire archives on Castle Meadow Rd, Nottingham NG2 1AG. You will need to register with them to be allowed to look at what you need: a library card and items with your address and signature (e.g. driving licence) are needed. Don’t worry if you are new to the archives, you will find the staff very helpful in locating what you need, telling you how to request them, and how to view them. If you want to take notes, you will need to use a pencil not a pen, and an A5 notebook is useful.
Building applications are just listed in date order so the better you know when your house was built, the quicker you will be able to find the right entry. The books to request are:
Building Plan Registers
DC/WB/5/1/1 1895-1922
DC/WB/5/1/2 1923-1925
DC/WB/5/1/3 1925-1956
Planning Application Registers
DC/WB/5/4/1 1948-1970
DC/WB/5/4/2 1946-1973
The Building Plan Register will tell you who the owner and the builder were and tell you the number of the building plan. The building plans are available on microfilms Z525. You can find out which microfilm you need from the index. The index is in the blue bound volume labelled DC:WB-WR, which is kept on a shelf in the area immediately to the left as you enter the archives. Once you have the number of the right microfilm you can request it and see how your house was originally meant to be built.
The next step is to track who has lived in the house. You can find this out from the electoral registers, which are on microfiches in the cabinets in that same area by the door. West Bridgford has come under different authorities at different times; this is where you will find the fiches:
1838-1885 County Southern Division in Cabinet 1 Drawer 3
1886-1954 Rushcliffe in Cabinet 1 Drawers 3 to 6
1955-1971 City in Cabinet 2 Drawer 7 [see details below]
1972-1984 Rushcliffe in Cabinet 1 Drawer 6
The years 1916-17, 1939-45 and 1981-82 are missing.
The references for the 1955-71 fiches are:
Year CA/TC/3/ Nos
55-56 93B 9-11
56-57 93B 10-11
57-58 95B 10-11
58-59 97B 10-11
59-60 99B 10-11
60-61 101B 9-11
61-62 103B 9-11
62-63 105C 5-6
63-64 107C 5-6
64-65 109C 5-6
65-66 111C 5-6
66-67 113C 5-6
67-68 115C 5-6
68-69 117D 5-7
69-70 120C 7-10
70-71 122C 8-11
Unfortunately there are no indexes to narrow the search down further: a patient search through the fiches is needed.
Once you have the names of the former residents, you may wish to find out more about them. The archives has Ancestry on their computers, and the staff there will be happy to show you how to use it. If your house was built before 1911, then you can use the census returns to see who was living there then. Ancestry also has the 1939 registers produced at the start of World War II.
For even more information, the British Newspaper Archive is an excellent resource. There is free access at the archives; again, ask staff to help get you started.