Hearth tax significant proportion of householders were not liable to pay at all. The hearth tax was much resented because it often entailed inspection of the interior of dwellings by the sub-collectors and petty constables, who had legal authority to enter every property to check on the number of hearths. Some people stopped up their chimneys so that the tax was not due on them, but where this was discovered by the assessors the tax was doubled. On 31 July 1684, a fire in Churchill, Oxfordshire, destroyed 20 houses and many other buildings, and killed four people. It was apparently caused by
Hearth tax launched a platform for the publication and dissemination of research and analysis on hearth tax records and other associated documents. Hearth tax A hearth tax was a property tax in certain countries during the medieval and early modern period, levied on each hearth, thus by proxy on each family unit. It was calculated based on the number of hearths, or fireplaces, within a municipal area. Hearth tax was levied in the Byzantine Empire from the 9th century, France and England from the 14th century, and finally in England, Scotland and Ireland in the 17th century. In the Byzantine Empire a