Catalogue description Office of Land Revenue Records and Enrolments: Rentals

Rentals of the Crown lands submitted by the Receivers of Crown Rents to the Office of Land Revenue Records and Enrolments (established by an act of 1832, 2 & 3 Will IV, c1) in England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, the Isle of Man and Alderney in the Channel Islands from 1832 to 1915.

They are mainly in volume form and contain: name of the tenant or lessee, address of the 'premises', area of the land, annual rent, details of any arrears, amount of rent received during the year and sometimes a declaration of the accuracy of the account rendered signed by the receiver.

The accounts relate mainly to leasehold rents, but refer also to fee farm and viscontiel rents, tithe rent charges, royalties and rents for mines; and licences (sporting and fishing, erection, laying and maintenance of embankments, poles, cables and drains, extraction of sand, gravel and water from foreshores or rivers).

The Irish accounts include quit rents and in LRRO 12/382 grazing rents in Phoenix Park, Dublin, and Decimus Burton's accounts for 'extraordinary services' in the park, 1847-1849.

They relate to large agricultural and urban estates, manors or farms and in cities to messuages of every description (dwelling houses, workshops, shops, public houses, etc). With a few exceptions (eg Windsor) rentals relating to parks or forests do not extend beyond 1915 (as records were transferred from the Office of the Commissioners of Crown Lands to the Forestry Commission on its setting up in 1924).

Rentals relating to 'foreshores' and 'mines' (including coal, iron, tin, fireclay mines and stone quarries) are accounted separately.

The principal receiverships of rents from crown were as follows:

1. London Property: up to March 1925:

• City and county of London (formerly in Middlesex and Southwark, but excluding the Rolls Estate and fee farm rents). Parts of the county of London formerly in Kent and Surrey are in 'Southern district' rentals of Messrs Clutton.
• The Rolls Estate.
• Middlesex (excluding fee farm rents).
• Fee farm rents in the city and county of London, Middlesex and the county of York (Mulgrave and Seaton).
• Certain estates in Ireland.
• Submarine mines in England and Ireland (to 1921/1922).
• Lincolnshire and Yorkshire (from April 1918).
• Windsor, Eton and Datchet, all in Berkshire (from July 1924).
• The former Northern district rentals (from October 1924).

From April 1925 entries for each property are on a separate sheet covering five years. Allocation of rental numbers:

• 1-5500 London, Middlesex and fee farm rents.
• 5501-6000 Mines (Northern, submarine and Windsor).
• 6001-8000 Windsor and district.
• 8001-8999 Northern district.

From April 1942:

• 9000-10000 Millbank Estate.

2. Cumberland Market Estate, London:

'High Holborn, Cumberland market; Augustus St; Redhill Place; Park Crescent Mews West'. Covers property east of Albany Street and in the Regent's Park district, in High Holborn (to 1934/1935) and later in Camberwell and Bloomsbury.

3. Agricultural, Residential and Building Estates in and near London. The rentals for the agricultural estates in Messrs Clutton's receivership are in three groups:

• Lands: bound up in volumes. A table in the printed standard list set shows in which volume after 1922/1923 (there is only one volume before) the rental for a particular estate will be found. The volume number shown in table and list does not always appear on the volume itself.
• Manors: rentals included in the agricultural, residential and building estates rentals in Messrs Clutton's receivership (in LRRO 12/570-1820) are: Berks: Dedworth Mansell and Clewer Brocas Burwell Ramseys; Cambs: Burwell Ramseys. Dors: Portland Burwell Ramseys; Essex: Battleshall Herts: Hitchin, Portman and Foreign (quit rents, common fines and other rents); Hunts: Great Staughton; Kent: Eltham and East Greenwich; Lincs: Wyberton; Middx: Hampton Court; Som: Milverton. Surrey: Richmond and Egham Burwell Ramseys; Sussex: Poynings, Perching and Pangdean Burwell Ramseys.
• Fee farm rents.

4. Northern district:

The Northern district receivership (held by Messrs Smiths, Gore and Company) comprised lands and mines in: Cheshire, Durham, Nottinghamshire; Cumberland, Lancashire, Yorkshire; Derbyshire, Northumberland; and fee farm rents in Cheshire, Lancashire, Westmorland; Cumberland, Northumberland, Yorkshire; Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire.

After October 1924, when the receivership ceased, the Northern district rentals are in the 'London, Middlesex, Windsor estates, Northern district.' rentals.

5. Principal agricultural estates:

Bedfordshire, Norfolk ; Buckinghamshire, Northamptonshire; Nottinghamshire; Cambridgeshire; Cheshire, Oxfordshire; Gloucestershire; Suffolk; Huntingdonshire; Kent Sussex; Lancashire, Wiltshire; Lincolnshire, Yorkshire. Mines in: Cheshire, Sussex; Lancashire, Wiltshire; Oxfordshire, Yorkshire; and manors in: Lancs: Muchland and Torver; Wilts: Bishops Cannings; Yorks: Patrington. The rentals for Muchland and Torver shown separately in the series list are sub-rentals to the 'Principal agricultural estates' rental, and contain details of copyhold, free, boon, etgro and fishing etc.

6. Wales and Monmouth:

• Fee farm rents, rents of crown property and mines for Anglesey, Denbighshire, Monmouthshire; Brecknockshire, Flintshire, Montgomeryshire; Caernarvonshire, Glamorganshire, Pembrokeshire; Cardiganshire, Merionethshire, Radnorshire; Carmarthenshire.
• Encroachment rents.
• Collection rents for: Caernarvonshire; Denbighshire: lordships of Denbigh and Bromfield and Yale; Flintshire: Rhuddlan Collection; Merionethshire; Pembrokeshire.

7. Scotland:

For LRRO 12/570-1820 Scottish rentals are numbered (unnumbered for Caithness, Orkney and the Gordon estates):

• I: Feu duties, Exchequer, petty feus
• II: Haddington, Edinburgh, Peebles and Roxburgh
• III: Foreshores, fishings and mines
• IV: Bishoprics of Caithness and Moray (for counties of Inverness, Nairn and Ross, the remainder in No IX) and bishopric of Ross
• V: Caithness, Ross and Inverness: surplus teinds
• VI: Priory Acres, St Andrews, Fife: valued teinds
• VII: Archb. of Glasgow: feu duties
• VIII: Lanark: surplus teinds or tack rents of surplus teinds in Shettleston, Calton, Barony and Springburn
• IX: Bishoprics of Aberdeen, St Andrews, Brechin and Moray, Feu. Duties Aberdeen, Banff, Elgin, Forfar and Kincardine ; and petty feus in Old Machar parish, Aberdeen
• X: Bishopric of St Andrews: petty feus in Old Machar parish, Aberdeen
• XI: Kincardine, Elgin, Forfar and Moray: surplus teinds
• XII: Fife, Forfar, Perth: feu and teind duties formerly paid to the Governor of Edinburgh Castle
• XIII: Bishopric of Argyll and The Isles, bishopric of Dunkeld: feu duties
• XIV: Regality of Dunfermline
• XV: Archb. of St Andrews and bishopric of Dunblane (for Forfar and Kincardine see No IX): bishop's rents in Fife, Kinross, Perth and Stirling
• XVI: Fife, Perth and Stirling: surplus teinds
• XVII: Lordships of Galloway and Duncow; and bishopric of Galloway
• XVIII: Ayr, Dumfries, Wigtown, Kirkcudbright and Bute: surplus teinds
• XIX: Lordship of Fife
• XX: Haddington: Lordship of Dunbar
• XXI: Land and mines in crown lands

Earlier rentals submitted to the Office of the Auditors of Land Revenue are in LR 13

Many of the rentals shown as 'Wanting' in the series list were probably lost during the various moves of the Office of the Commissioners of Crown Lands during the Second World War.