Building plans introduction

To find out if we hold copies of Local Authority plans for a particular building or development ....

1. Identify the relevant parish, taking into account the possibility of boundary changes especially for parishes near to urban areas ( e.g. Goldington)

2. Then look up the parish and identify the relevant Borough/District to search either before or after 1974.

3. Look up the entry for the relevant Borough or District to see if plans exist for the relevant date* in the archives of the appropriate authority or in copy form in the archives of the County Council.

4. Where this is not successful for the date selected, see if any plans exist in the archives of the relevant Parish or Town Council (bearing in mind that most of these plans postdate 1947 at the earliest) or, where County Council owned buildings, and housing and industrial estates are concerned in particular, the archives of the County Council.

*The plans which survive in the archives for each of the authorities listed are not complete. What exists usually represents either the surviving material offered to the Archives Service when the archives were deposited - after 'natural' selection of archives had occurred - or such material as has been selected by the Archives Service following appraisal according to written guidelines.

Other building plans which may have been deposited from private sources, as part of the documentary evidence of title to a piece of land for instance, can be traced by using the subject index under the heading 'BUILDINGS AND LAND (USE)...' and the many cross references which exist - see Subject Index - for specific types of buildings such as farms, churches, inns, mills, and public buildings.