John Norris Remembers - Searching the Records
The village charities set up many years ago, in the eighteen hundreds, have been managed by trustees appointed by the several village organisations. The Vicar is ex-officio, the Parish Council appoint three, and the County Council one. This group is responsible for the management of the properties owned by the charities, and to distribute any surplus monies to those in need.
When I was first appointed we, the charities, owned several properties in the village, now all pulled down. They were used especially for elderly women as retire homes, we poor men were expected to have passed away long before our devoted spouses.! There were four houses down the lane to Hall Farm, two at the corner of Rogers Road, and six at the Beeches. Sadly all gone. These cottages were quite a draw on the finances, as they always seemed to be needing attention. But to-day all our assets are in land and thus require little running attention.
At our last half- yearly meeting we decided that the land should be registered with the Land Registry, to secure our ownership for the future. This has been quite a task, as there are no title deeds, and very little evidence of past transactions. The first document to help start this search is the Terrier. This is a record of the fields and their O.S. numbers compiled in 1803, and amended in 1904, together with a copy of the Ordnance Survey Map of the whole parish of Swaffham Prior. I have a quarter scale copy of this map and it shows the charity land as Swaffham Town.
Armed with all this information it was not too difficult to identify the various plots of real estate, until we noticed that there appeared to be one field missing. We have been collecting the rents for many years, but without reference to the Terrier, we all knew where the fields were, and who was the tenant. But because the terrier is part of the land registry requirements this anomaly turned up. The field in question was easily identified from my map, but who owns it now ,and from when?
I thought the Records Office in Cambridge should be the first point of call, as I had deposited all the surplus records there some ten years ago. We made arrangements to visit Shire Hall to search our records. The clerk and I had out all the documents they possessed, but they were very trivial, consisting of old cheques.( in impeccable writing, some dating back fifty years),and repair bills, but no minute books After drawing a blank there, I thought a visit to a former clerk would be helpful, which it was. Eric Day suggested we look for the last minute book, which was very tired; the covers having been lost a long time ago, but was complete as far as the records went.
Thankfully several of these volumes were found in a plastic bag stacked away carefully in an attic, not being of immediate use, but perhaps containing information useful in the future. A carefull; search was made through this old minute book, and low and behold, a record was found dated 1952 where a certain Mr Worrell had made an offer of £250 for the Ten Acre field. This was refused as being miserly, but an offer of £300 would be acceptable!
The problem solved, but the terrier remained unaltered. We shall bring our records up to date and proceed to register our assets. But more difficulties emerged as the ordnance numbers were so out of date, that I had to find copies of both the 1904, and the latest edition of the parish map to satisfy the registry that we did indeed own these properties, as the terrier is our best evidence of ownership.
This is as far as we have got at present, but I hope in the not too distant future to report success.. As a related subject, the spending of our income is I believe a little erratic, in that most of it goes in the Christmas handout. ... I have noticed recently how difficult shopping is for the elderly, and we could provide a mini bus service, specially for those who can walk about , but find the bus stop too far from their homes to carry the groceries. but not both! I have not costed this or even spoken about it to anyone, but through these columns if there is a need then it could be considered. It is done elsewhere, and does provide a helpful social way of doing the shopping.