I was rather surprised that the presenter and his experts didn't pick up on the actual ownership of the house - many similar houses in the early 19th century were often rented / leased rather than owned outright, and that would have been a reasonable guess where people like clerks seemed to be living above their stations! (And the "clErk" instead of "ClArk" pronunciation was a bit irritating) Did they not check out who built and sold the houses, how many were owner occupied, how many rented, etc.... there would have been sales information, and deeds, etc. My own parents' house had deeds documenting every owner including the original land, and transfer from 1830 when their house was built, with receipts, death certificates, changes of use, etc, and they added to that archive when in time they sold it on
Also, I can understand why the presenter preferred to follow the chap who toddled off to America, but if the programme was ABOUT THE HOUSE, then he went rather off topic.
The census returns were a good place to start, but there seemed to me to be quite a lot of guesswork - I'd not have thought it'd have cost over £1,000 in the first place, at that time, knowing the cost of similar houses not that far away - and a general bittiness that started to grate.
I had really been looking forward to this series, and was sad that it was not as good as it promised.
The illustrations were, however, delightful.