Court of Wards and Liveries: Deeds and Evidences

The series comprises deeds and evidences exhibited in cases heard before the Court of Wards and Liveries and not returned to their owners.

The exhibits include indentures, charters, final concords, quit claims, bonds, receipts, court rolls, rentals, letters of attorney, awards, agreements and a variety of notes and memoranda. These records refer to many families and estates chiefly in the English counties, with the occasional Welsh material, including the estates of the Poultney family from Leicestershire, the possessions of Lacock Abbey in Wiltshire, estates in Burnham in Norfolk and properties in Romney in Kent.

The earliest record is a grant of lands in Lincolnshire and the most recent is a note on transfer of records in the late 19th century.

In the 1920s, these records were apparently conserved and rehoused in 65 boxes. This arrangement is reflected in the piece references, in which the first number is the current box, the second refers to the old box or bag where the documents were previously stored (each usually including material referring to the same estate or family), and the third is a running number, starting from 1 within each old bundle.