Has anyone researched the history of their house? If so, how ?

[Havey]

My house is 1860ish and I'd like to know about its past. How would I go about this?

The main big library In Our town has lots of books and old local directories of streets etc. really interesting and I was able to go back 100+ yrs to see who lived in my home, names and occupations.
Some older records are locked in cabinets so you might need to ask for help but try your local library or town hall archives?

Find My Past had a 1 week free membership deal last week. If you search by census year you can input the address and loads of info will come up! Just remember that the original county name will have been different, sometimes just the number and street is enough to find your home.

Request copies of deeds from national records in Scotland or London. Or pay someone to do it for you! There are lots of people about.

I have! My house was built 1884. Do you have any of the deeds? Whether you do or not, you can access genealogy websites for free at your local library and the census is a good place to start. Once you have some people's names you can then go down rabbit holes about them - eg I found all kids of other records about my house' occupants and owners, all searching online for free at the library. Eh local newspaper articles, divorce court records (surprisingly detailed about my victorian and Edwardian inhabitants).

I also used hard copies of Kelly's Directories at the library - kind of like the yellow pages but listing the head of household each year for every house in our town.

I visited the local history room in my local Museum, where I found a rates book from the 1920s this was very interesting because it showed the use of each room, and the dimensions.

The other very interesting thing was I looked up my address in the British newspaper archives and from this I found several people had died in my house, and a few people had been born in it.

Really helpful. Thank you all for taking the time to respond

As a previous poster said, websites like Ancestry or FindMyPast are probably the best places to start.

As @Wigeon said, you can often access them for free at some local libraries. Although, where I live, this is only available by making an appointment in advance at the main library on four days a week (so you have to take time off work if you want to do it this way).

From these you can find the census information for people who lived in your house from 1841 up until 1921. There is then also the 1939 Register as well.

From there, you can go on to look in more detail if you want. There are also a few books that I would recommend:

Tracing Your House History: A Guide For Family Historians (2013) by Gill Blanchard. £12.65 on Amazon

This book really goes into detail about all the different sources that are available. It doesn't so much tell you how to do things, it's more about giving you the sources.

Then there is:

Collins Tracing Your Home's History (2006) by Anthony Adolph. £20 on Amazon.

and

Tracing the History of Your House: The Building, the People, the Past (2006) by Nick Barratt. It's out of print but secondhand copies are £0.95p on Amazon.

both of which are very useful indeed.
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But, it you wanted an absolute basic, beginners introduction to the whole thing then this would probably be a good place to start:

How to Research Your House: Every Home Tells a Story (2007) by Pamela Brooks. £9.33 on Amazon

We were actually given the deeds for every owner since it was built! Not helpful to you, I know, but very interesting all the same...

basic census records are a good start but aren't going to pick up every owner if they stayed for less than 10 years or happened to be away on the night of the census. Also, the latest census available is 1921, apart from the 1939 register. You can also look at electoral rolls and voter lists.

Yes, almost all our house inhabitants stayed less than 10 years, but fortunately we also have the deeds from 1879 (land was sold to be developed) to c.1970s, so I was able to piece things together.

Our library (Hertfordshire) allows you to access the genealogy and other historical websites (eg national newspaper archive) for free any time the library is open with no appointment - just log in to one of their computers with your library card. It was brilliant!

The most interesting thing I found was the high court divorce records of two different sets of people associated with our house - I think one was 1909. Handwritten records, almost verbatim "he said she said" all about the affairs, eg the criminal husband who abandoned his wife and then bigamously married another woman. The occupant of our house then tracked down where he was living, went to his house in Euston area in London to confront him, where his new "wife" answered the door and claimed to be "Mrs Smith".

Another where the occupant of our house had had an affair with a man, full details of the liaisons with the lover which the jilted husband said she was having in various fields. The court found the lover and her guilty of adultery and the husband got full custody of their 5 children, she was allowed to see the children occasionally at her parents' house, and the lover had to pay the husband a stiff penalty!

The court also ordered the husband to return a long list of the wife's possessions which were still in the marital home (not our house) but which the husband wouldn't let the wife have back - fascinating to read a list of the household possessions of a middle class Edwardian woman.