This collection contains the volumes of the valuations made 1910 to 1915 and commonly known as the `Mini Domesday’. These cover the whole of the present London Borough of Lewisham area and are the valuations books only, not the maps.
Duties on land values
These are the record of valuations made by the commissioners of Inland Revenue in accordance with the provisions of Part 1 of the Finance Act 1910. There is no commencement date for entries, but amendments to about 1915.
Early in the 20th Century the unequal ownership of land was seen as a major economic and scoial concern to some. The Government responded to this by increasing the tax on property. This meant that owners of land had to give some of the increase in value of their land they had seen because of the public investment in roads, drainage, public buildings and public spaces.
To do this the government set up the Valuation Office and they assessed and recorded the value of each property. This meant that there was a detailed record of all properties for 1910-1915.
Some of the records are held at the National Archives at Kew (`field books' and maps) and the valuation books for the London Borough of Lewisham Area are held at the Local history and archives centre.
The figures were entered into `field books' (The National Archives reference IR 58) and the unique number given to each property recorded on Ordinance Survey maps (The National Archives reference IR 121 and IR124-145).
The valuation books were transfered to the local record offices and we hold the ones for the present London Borough of Lewisham area.
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