Excerpt from Calendar of Deeds Relating to Walthamstow, 1584 to 1855

This already has been done, in some measure, with Manor Court Rolls, and Walthamstow is one of those places approved by Lord Hanworth, the Master of the Rolls, to receive and store such records, but the acquisition of deeds, and similar documents, has been left to local authorities whose interest in the matter, generally speaking, is not very great, or to private collectors, whose material is not usually available even if its whereabouts is known.

The formation of an Antiquarian Society in Walthamstow, twenty years ago, created and stimulated interest in all matters relative to local history, and with the benevolent support, firstly of the District Council, and subsequently of the Corporation which succeeded it, a considerable number of deeds relating to Walthamstow have been acquired, and this present Monograph represents the third calendar which has been printed and issued by the Society, in co-operation with the governing authorities of the town.

Many deeds have been destroyed as obsolete and useless, in ignorance of the interesting and valuable particulars they contained; many more have perished from decay, damp, fire and the ravages of vermin; and in recent years many more have been utilised for commercial purposes in the manufacture of toy drum-heads, lamp Shades, etc. This wastage is greatly to be deplored, and it is therefore very desirable that the substance of the material, of which in many cases they are the only source, should be preserved and made available, by the agency of the printing press, particularly as, under the present system of land registration and the Short period necessary to constitute a title, the illuminating details which characterised deeds from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries are now lacking. Fifty years ago Walthamstow was a collection of scattered hamlets, and with the breaking up of the spacious grounds and gardens attached to the larger houses, farms and agricultural land, for building purposes, the picturesque village has become a populous town, and it is only in the earlier conveyances and leases that the field names, with their metes and bounds, situation, ownerships, and tenures are preserved.

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