Help! How old is this house?

[HowIsItMarchAlready]

My OH's parents have just moved into an old cottage in Devon. They'd like to find out when the cottage was built. We are talking 200 - 300 years. Land Registry records have not helped. We have tried property historians but they start at £1,000! Has anyone done research themselves and successfully found out how old their very old homes are? If so, how did you do it? Thank you.

Look at progressively older maps of the town/village, see if it disappears or appears? Local Library might have a collection? There is a free online map collection, I will try to remember the website name.

Google the town/village and or street name, sometimes local historians do research and post their findings (usually on old platforms, clunky and non intuitive to navigate)
Facebook groups for the area.

Any good?

The local library may have a local history section.

Can you list any unusual/distinguishing features the house has, that may help you to research the time periods for those features? Any similar house nearby whose owners you could ask?

maps.nls.uk/geo/find/#zoom=4&lat=56.32856&lon=-6.28781&layers=103&b=1&z=0&point=0,0 note not just maps of Scotland here.

The deeds of the house should contain a fair amount of its history.

Barnstable and Exeter both have archives, a visit to either - though Im not sure where in Devon so can't direct you further

you'll be wanting to look at estate maps, tithe is 1850s and so to recent if the property s 300 years old

the archivist will be able to recommend particular documents that would be able to shed more light on the age of the property

be prepared to spend some time searching and maybe more than one visit to the archive

for me house history is more about the people that lived into property rather than the dates

on visiting an archive take two forms of I.D and pencils to take notes

As per a PP; use this website to look at maps over the years www.oldmapsonline.org/
You could also see if there's a local history group who may have information.

maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=15&lat=50.37349&lon=-4.12408&layers=168&b=5

If you do a google search of the house name you may get more information.
The way the house looks can usually date it with some accuracy, and you can also get timbers dated.

You can also search on the 1841 Census which would at least give you a “no younger than” date.

Deeds, if not census, church baptism and wedding records all can help pin point roughly. Parish maps and records may also exist, there may ge a keen archivist at the local parish church

Thank you. We will check out the suggestions above.

Also have a look for local history or specifically historic buildings groups, that's how we found out about the history of ours. They didn't charge, made drawings and even sent out a dendrochronologist

If you look at features like the windows, roof etc they should give you a clue. We learned that in history…and were sent round the village looking at mullions and gable ends and the like (some vv old houses there).

If the house is listed, then look up the list description on Historic England's website.

County archives. Ring them up, tell them you are looking for history of your home. The archivists will know what documents to pull based on the address and you can make an appointment to go in and peruse them.