Every house has a story to tell. With this info-packed, fully illustrated guide, you can start discovering the secret history of your own house today. The property you live in may be decades or even centuries old and much may have changed since it was originally built. To trace its history may seem a daunting task, but there are always clues to dating it if you know what to look for. Using detailed illustrations and photographs, Trevor Yorke describes how to discover the approximate date of a house by looking at the physical evidence, not just of the house itself (its style and shape, the material used to build it and the quality of the interior fixtures and fittings) but also its location. You'll also discover the various sources of information available to help date a building, including maps and estate surveys, histories of the locality, and also those documents which reveal who may have lived in it previously. This book is not just for those wishing to discover the history of their own house. It will also be an invaluable guide for those who simply wish to understand more about the history of the period properties they see around them - from grand estates and elegant townhouses to country cottages and traditional terraces. Towards the back of the book, you'll find an illustrated timeline, a list of useful websites and a glossary of key terms.