Prince or pauper

What happens when the details of listed buildings are inaccurate? Lucy Denton investigates

-  Lucy Denton

WE thought we had bought an 18th- century house’, says one home-owner of his pretty, Grade listed, thatched cottage in countryfied southern England, ‘but were taken aback to find out our garden wall was once the end of a Victorian latrine.’ Recent research on his property acquired more than 15 years ago, uncovered an unlikely provenance—a compelling snippet of social history, not as a polite Georgian abode, but as one-time Poor Law Union lodgings, home to paupers crammed into a crude, rubble construction and set to work as laborers. The site was almost completely rebuilt in the mid 19th century and remodeled in modern times—unacknowledged in its formal listed-building description maintained by Historic England and apparently not referred to in sale details.

Occasional errors or omissions in the understanding of a house’s history are more likely to crop up when the investigation is prompted, often for planning purposes and listed building consent. However, the confidence that owners and potential buyers should have informal descriptions found in the National Heritage List for England or histories supplied with particulars, and what they can do about inaccuracies, is not always clear and appears to be legally untested. List entries, often written up as cursory details in older versions yet to be updated, are not meant to be meticulously detailed accounts.