Deeds relating to land and property in the midland counties

Miscellaneous title deeds, mostly on vellum, relating mainly to property transactions in the counties of Warwickshire, Worcestershire, Gloucestershire, Herefordshire and Staffordshire. They are written in English with one in Latin; the bond is partly in both languages as was usual.

Deeds such as these can reveal detail on the patterns of land ownership in a locality though it should be born in mind that property details given in final agreements are fictitious and formalised and the sum of money can be notional: the fine alone does not show the complete purpose of the transaction. Some small insight into occupations in a locality is given in the descriptions of the parties; deeds can be useful for the study of place-names and the value of different sort of land, and land use.

The original order of this group of deeds has been preserved but that seems not to have been based on any particular reasoning.

Open. Access to all registered researchers.

Please see full catalogue for more information.

Described by Anne George, November 2014, in compliance with General International Standard Archival Description (ISAD(G), second edition, 2000; and in-house cataloguing guidelines.

Permission to make any published use of any material from the collection must be sought in advance in writing from the Director of Special Collections (email: special-collections@contacts.bham.ac.uk). Identification of copyright holders of unpublished material is often difficult. Special Collections will assist where possible with identifying copyright owners, but responsibility for ensuring copyright clearance rests with the user of the material.

Former location: MSS 5/i/4/1-19; prior to acquisition in 1966 the provenance is not now known.