Archive Collections

The Council holds thousands of title deeds relating to property in the borough and beyond from about 1300.

These are typically contained in two types of collection: solicitors' and landed estates. However many deeds have also come to us either as single items or as a collection relating to just one property.

Many are straightforward deeds recording the sale of property. Others will be mortgages, leases (most people until the second half of the 20th century rented the houses they lived in or the land they farmed) and, when well-to-do families were concerned, settlements of property on marriage or death.

From 1703 it was possible (but not compulsory) to register conveyances of land with the West Riding court of quarter sessions and copies are held at the Registry of Deeds in Wakefield, Email: wakefield@wyjs.org.uk

Major collections of title deeds held at Rotherham Archives

Parker Rhodes solicitors: about 3,000 deeds from the 15th century, mainly for Yorkshire, but also Derbyshire, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire and other counties throughout England. This includes the substantial estate records of the Ravenfield Hall estate. [Ref 63-B]

Rotherham Corporation: several hundred deeds mainly relating to the borough of Rotherham for the 18th and 19th centuries. [Ref 213-C]

Trustees of R. J. Bentley: mainly Rotherham & Bramley, but also Brampton-en-le-Morthen, Sheffield, Armthorpe & Lancashire, 18th - 20th century. [Ref 86-B & 186-F]

Verelst of Aston Hall: mainly Aston, but also Penistone. [Ref 301-F]

Feoffees of the Common Lands: mainly Rotherham from the 17th century
to the 20th century. [Ref 363-G]