Urban Housing Estates in the Eighteenth Century

This paper examines the supply of building land by estate owners in the eighteenth century, based particularly on estate records and other contemporary sources for about fifteen British towns. While the rise in the value of land on its conversion from agricultural use into building sites was an obvious incentive to estate owners, it was offset in part by the high initial cost of providing the basic amenities, and the frequent delay in obtaining a substantial return on this outlay. In England and Wales land was either sold, or conveyed on building lease, the latter being preferred by the large private owners and corporations, and by 1800 ninety-nine years was becoming an increasingly common term. In the case of leasehold developments landlords preferred that builders should erect better-class rather than artisan dwellings, although the demand for the former was limited apart from London, Edinburgh and Bath. Their main means of controlling development lay in the covenants inserted in the leases, which varied greatly in number and detail.