ABSTRACT
Agricultural valuations have been needed as long as there have been transactions in and taxation of farmland. The oldest recorded lease in England was granted soon after 700 with references in Anglo-Saxon literature to those managing land in the decades. Much of the Domesday Book of 1086 can be seen as a register of the values of agricultural properties for taxation purposes, prepared with the skills of preceding centuries of Anglo-Saxon administration. The knowledge of value and factors affecting it may inform and influence other business and family decisions. The corollary was the need to assess dilapidations, the tenant's compensation to the landlord for shortcomings in his management of the property. Turnpike roads, canals and the railways all drove the need to consider the value of the land taken and the effects on retained land in the compulsory purchase code first pulled together as general legislation in 1845.
