The Cost of Costessey

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At today's meeting of the Costessey Memories group, Roy brought in this copy of a Costessey-related document and photo. The record of land purchase shows that Miss Fisher paid £50 for a plot in June 1945. People in the Costessey Memories group confirm that these plots were a third of an acre in size. The photo, below, shows the King family proudly standing outside their make-shift home, a redundant railway carriage. 

We were all struck by how much you could purchase for so little back then. Even allowing for the fact that wages were a lot lower in 1945, this was still cheap in comparison with today's land prices. A useful tool to use here is the National Archive currency converter:

Currency Converter

Although this converter only translates values to 2005 prices, it gives us some idea of how the relative value of land has increased since the end of World War Two. Using the tool, I typed in the sum of £50.2.17 (ie the combined value of the land plus legal fees) and this would be worth £1,371.46 in 2005. 

Colin Howey