I WAS interested to read your article on the land at Brighton Road, Holland-on-Sea (October 6), although not particularly surprised at the restrictions on the plot, whereby certain trades and practices are banned.

In fact, much of this area of Holland-on-Sea is covered by similar covenants that may be easily overturned today, but I am possibly one of a few still in possession of a Title Abstract, running to the equivalent of 25 A2 pages, relating to my property. I also cannot sell beer of spirits from my land, or have “a caravan house on wheels” on it, nor may I erect a “sleeping apartment booth, swing or roundabout” in my back garden. It’s all written in that strange hand that solicitors used in days gone by, with abbreviations that defied translation, making them look very clever back then.

I feel it’s a great pity that the Land Registry has swallowed up so many of these title deeds in its property registration plan, so that few of today’s residents have anything more than a certificate of ownership of title.

I daresay that there are few of us who can produce the mortgage charges of every owner of our homes over the years, my own address having been first mortgaged to a Mr and Mrs Sabell, from Birmingham, in October 1933. The bungalow cost £584, and the retired mechanic and his wife were given a mortgage by the Rural District Council of Tendring, to be repaid by quarterly instalments of “three pounds fifteen shillings”, on which they also paid interest equivalent to “four pounds five shillings per centum per annum”.

Other more recent borrowers obtained a mortgage of £1,450 from the widow, Ruth Penelope Swinnerton Richardson, at Sunny Corner Kennels in Little Clacton - not a lot of people know that.

It’s a pity that in these days of low returns on our investments and savings, this practise is still not in fashion.

Peter J Humphrey
Canterbury Road
Holland-on-Sea