West Riding Registry of Deeds

The following source list was originally available only on paper in one of the West Yorkshire Archive Service offices. It may have been compiled many years ago and could be out of date. It was designed to act as a signpost to records of interest on a particular historical subject, but may relate only to one West Yorkshire district, or be an incomplete list of sources available. Please feel free to add or update with any additional information.

The West Riding Registry of Deeds was established under the terms of an Act which was obtained in 1704, but the office did not come completely under the control of the Quarter sessions and the West Riding County Council until the 1880s. Registrars of the West Riding Registry of Deeds were elected to the position.

The West Riding Registry of deeds is one of only four County Registries of its kind in England the others being Middlesex, North Riding of Yorkshire and the East Riding of Yorkshire. There was also a Registry in the district known as the Bedford Level, but this was not the same as the four County Registries and of these the West Riding Registry of Deeds was the largest.

The Registry of Deeds Building

Originally the West Riding Registry of Deeds was housed in Kirkgate, opposite the parish church. It was established in ‘the nearest market town to the centre or middle of the West Riding’. This ‘handsome stone building’ was enlarged by the erection of a new wing in 1829, however with the ever increasing number of deeds registered, in the 20th century the Kirkgate premises soon became full and had no more room for further expansion.

The issue was raised as to where the new Registry should be situated. Leeds had lots of advocates as it was an assize town and increasingly the major centre in the Riding for solicitors and Barristers. However, the Law and Parliamentary Committee rejected this idea and in December 1926 they selected a site for a new Registry on the north side of Bond Street in Wakefield.

Wakefield Corporation, grateful for the retention of the Registry offered the free gift of ‘The Gables’, a detached villa in its own grounds at the corner of Newstead Road and Margaret Street. This site was initially rejected in favour of the Bond Street site, but in May 1928 after further discussions the Bond Street site was rescinded in favour of Newstead Road with an estimated building cost of £57,658 [actually £50,568 after tenders].

The Deeds were transferred from the old Registry at Whitsun 1932 and the Kirkgate site was sold at auction for £6,000 in June 1933 to Marks and Spencers [?]. The new Registry had no formal opening and it closed 40 years later when the anticipated new system of registering deeds reached Yorkshire. The Registry closed for registration of new deeds at the end of August 1970 and it officially closed two years later in September 1972 once the backlog of pre September 1970 deeds had been completed.

Registration of Deeds

The registration of Deeds was not compulsory although it was customary. Deeds were often registered as security on loans, or as part of trustee arrangements as well as secure title to property or land. Property/land that was inherited through a will was not always registered.

The particulars that are recorded in the memorials are not always exactly identical to those recorded on the original deeds. The person registering paid a registration fee which would determine what details were recorded. This also included whether or not any plans were included in the registration memorial.

The numbers of volumes reflect the periods when property ownership increased, such as between 1880 and 1930. Many larges estates were broken up and sold to builders as cities grew and the population rose.The inter-war years saw a dramatic rise in property registration partly because of the Law of Property Act [1926] and partly because of the growth of home ownership, stimulated by rising incomes and Building Society mortgages.

Finding Memorials in The Registry of Deeds

To locate a deed the name of the owner of the property is needed. It is possible to search for some deeds under the name of the township but these indexes are not complete and are not done by road/street address or postcode, see West Riding Registry of Deeds Indexes . The reference numbers used by the current Land Registry do not cross reference with memorials held at The Registry of Deeds.