A house built near Romford shortly before model estates were started in the area. I had no access to architect's plans but I did find field names and farm plans before it was built, then the dates and costs of when it was built and details of the well-respected chemist shop owner who had the house built. Building work paused for a baby to be born and weaned! The same family lived there for many years, and there was then an inheritance dispute that included a hotel arrest of one of the daughters.

Just outside Lincoln city centre, the site had formed part of a 19th century clay pit where bricks were made. The quarry had been at the back of the site, so the ground was at road level at the front but dropped away with the back garden in the partly backfilled pit. Here the unexpected interest was an old apple tree with strange looking but tasty fruit, at present identified as a Norfolk White Stone Pippin. The house was the home of the builder who built it and his family was well documented in the local paper. The house was given an Indian name, possibly because of the clergyman from Bangalore who stayed next door for a time.

This was the site of a medieval house demolished during a siege in 1644. The existing house, hidden away in Uphill Lincoln but close to the cathedral, was built in the bottom of a medieval or slightly later stone quarry - and I discovered a record describing antiquarians exploring mined tunnels extending below it. That knowledge helped when an unexpected void appeared within the grounds!

The house served as a private nursing home in the mid 19th century, painted white externally and some traces remain visible. A watercolour of the house painted by an early 20th century local artist survives.

This one is the house I live in - where I've traced the site development from a building plot in a field through to construction with three other properties. It was then a standard mid 19th century brick terrace, two up, two down, with an extraordinary number of residents recorded at some Census dates. Stone walls in the cellar probably taken from a medieval church demolished nearby.