Legal Records

We hold many records relating to legal matters and you'll find some listed under Maps and Land Records, Family and Estate Records and Law and Order.

We also hold material given to us by solicitors. These records can reflect the business of the firm and its clients but can also contain material relating to official offices held by the solicitor, for example, elections to school boards, highways boards, petty sessions court business. Some collections such as Hobourn (HN) and Hooper & Fletcher (HF) are very large and are not fully catalogued. Other collections may contain only a few documents – usually because the solicitor was not based in Bedfordshire and their main collection is held elsewhere but documents relating to Bedfordshire clients or property have been transferred to us.  Client files can be rich in family history detail as they often contain draft wills giving an idea of the client’s intentions at various points in time and in some cases may contain quite personal letters relating to family and business issues. On these pages you will see an overview of what solicitors collections we hold and their coverage and, because the collections often contain material relating to land and property ownership, some guides to deeds.