The Littlest One-Place Studies

What's the smallest size a one-place study can be? A single house! These littlest one-place studies can be an ordinary residence or a large estate, and studying a single property throughout its existence can be very rewarding.

My Homes Past aims to tell a house's story through photographs. If you have a UK one-place study, perhaps there's some old photographs there for houses within your one-place study, or perhaps you have photos to share with them?

You'll want to move beyond just images, though, to undertake a one-place study of a single property and truly tell the tales of the people who lived and worked there. Most of the things that can be researched for an OPS also apply to a single property, even if they only apply in miniature! Hoar Oak Cottage is an example of such a study. Bette and the Friends of Hoar Oak Cottage took part in our WW1 project for members, producing a Roll of Honour for the cottage that may be understandably short on names but is long on the details of those men's war stories.

There are professional house historians who research particular houses for their clients or real estate agents. Follow Melanie Backe-Hansen (@HouseHistorian) on Twitter for interesting commentary and tips from her life as a professional house historian. There's also an audio interview with here that you might like to listen to here.

If you'd prefer some offline (or ebook) reading, Gill Blanchard's book Tracing Your House History is definitely worth taking a look at (members, we have a review of Gill's book in our Member section).

Alex Coles