Catalogue description The Crown Estate Commissioners and predecessors: Title Deeds etc of Properties Acquired, and Sold or Leased, by the Crown

This very large collection of deeds, conveyances and other documents relates to lands bought, exchanged, acquired by escheat or leased out (or, rarely, sold) by the Crown, or by the successive government departments managing Crown lands for the financial benefit of the state. It does not contain title deeds relating to lands owned by the monarch as a private landowner, such as the Sandringham estate. Some of the transactions appear to be on behalf of relatives of the monarch, rather than the Crown (e.g. lands bought by the Princess Elizabeth in 1817, CRES 38/35)

Many of the deeds relate to fairly small areas of land or property, especially in London: some, particularly escheats of property of people dying intestate without traceable heirs, are very small. Considerable numbers of properties were purchased in areas where the Crown had a particular interest, such as Windsor or Osborne. Other title deeds are for very large estates purchased for investment purposes, such as the Bryanston estate in Dorset and Somerset, bought from Viscount Portman in 1950 (CRES 38/247-527), or the Bedgebury estate, in Kent, bought from I Lewis in 1919 (CRES 38/888-951).

With the property, no matter of what size, generally came the possession of all previous records of title and much other documentation as well, often of great interest for local historians. In some cases, the earlier deeds appear to have become detached from the actual conveyance to the Crown (e.g. CRES 38/10). Although the conveyances largely took place in the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the deeds to the properties for a considerable period before are usually attached. Papers connected with the Bedgebury estate, for example, have a date range of 1314 to 1918. Some go back as far as the thirteenth century, and there are very large numbers from the sixteenth century onwards. Other types of document also crop up. Copies of wills occur frequently: marriage settlements, tax assessments, correspondence, and papers in law suits less so. Some oddments appear in this series, such as the confirmation of the election of the abbess of Canonsleigh in 1410 (CRES 38/515 no 3).

Others of the title deeds relate to the purchase of small areas of land for administrative purposes, to allow access of various kinds to existing Crown properties (e.g. access to repair drains, walls, etc). These tend to be purely the formal documents (mostly twentieth century). The records of sales and leases by the Crown also tend to contain only the necessary documentation, and not the accretion of previous centuries (which, in the case of sales, should have passed to the purchaser). Other administrative types of document are also included, particularly agreements relating to foreshores.