How the Survey was carried out

How the Survey was carried out

The Valuation Survey was carried out by the Valuation Office of the Board of Inland Revenue at the direction of the Finance (1909-1910) Act 1910. The Valuation Office had recently been set up to value property for the purposes of Estate Duty. With the expansion of its duties as a result of the 1910 Act, the numbers of personnel swelled from 61 to some 600 permanent employees by July 1914, with an additional 4,500 temporary employees.

England and Wales were divided into 14 valuation regions, which in turn were sub-divided into 118 valuation districts. Within each valuation district, a number of so-called income tax parishes (ITPs) were created, and it was this income tax parish which constituted the basic administrative unit for the Valuation Office Survey. Our parishes were part of the West Midland region, which contained nine divisions of which we were in the district of Hereford & Worcester, and the valuation district of Pershore East. Aldington, Badsey, Bretforton and Wickhamford were in the Aldington ITP and Offenham was in the Cleeve Prior ITP. Where an ITP consisted of a number of neighbouring parishes, they usually took the name of the first place in an alphabetical list of the constituent parishes. Thus, although Badsey is far bigger than Aldington, it is only Aldington which is given in the IR58 catalogue at The National Archives as A comes before B.

Many records were created for or by the Board of Inland Revenue Valuation in the five-year period in which the data was collected, but three main series of records have survived which form the basis of the transcription:

1. The first was the Valuation précis (also known as Domesday Books, but properly entitled “Duties on Land Values”), prepared by the Inspector of Taxes. The books contain entries for each hereditament in England and Wales, providing basic information relative to the valuation of the property, including the valuation assessment number, map reference, owner, occupier, situation, description and extent. The original documents may be viewed at Worcestershire Record Office: BA 8585, Parcel 1, Reference 009:5, No 6 (Aldington, Badsey, Wickhamford) and BA 8585, Reference 009:5, Parcel 1, No 22 (Offenham).
2. The Field Books, the next series in order of compilation, were prepared by the Valuation Office, and normally contain all the information about individual hereditaments to be found in the Domesday Books plus, in some instances, additional details descriptive of the premises. The original documents may be viewed at The National Archives in series IR58.
3. The Forms 37–Land contain information extracted from the Domesday Books, though in a different format. The original documents may be viewed at Worcestershire Record Office: BA 8585, 009:5, Parcel 4 (Aldington, Badsey, Wickhamford) and BA 8585, 009:5, Parcel 10 (Offenham).

The information given on this website is an amalgamation of the information found in each of the three types of records. Sometimes more information is given in one than the other, eg the Domesday Book often contains the address of the owner, whereas the Field Book does not, whereas the Field Books contain descriptions of the property and land. The Field Books tend to give more field names which helps identification.