Popular television programmes highlight the satisfaction that can be gained from investigating the history of houses, and there is always plenty of interest in the subject, with archives becoming ever more accessible with access to the internet.

As the subject covers a broad field, the authors have set out to include advice on those aspects that usually apply to a project and others that will be of particular use for beginners. The reader is guided through every stage of research, from the first exploration of the archives to the completion of the task. Suggestions are also included on how to present the findings – a house history makes a very attractive gift.

The authors describe how to deduce the age of a property (it is very seldom directly recorded when a house was built) and characteristics of research on particular types of property – such as cottages, manor houses, inns, mills, former church properties, and farms – are discussed. In one example, research demonstrated that a farm was likely to have been a Domesday manor – a fascinating discovery achieved using records accessible to any beginner.