Historical names: Abkettleby (Manor) | Kettleby (Manor)
Location: Ab Kettleby, Leicestershire
Places / associated places: Ab Kettleby, Leicestershire
Listed in Domesday Book: Yes
Location & Extent
GPS Location & Recorded Land Areas
Representative GPS point: 52.8005, -0.9283
Identity: confirmed — The TNA/MDR record F284904, authority reference GB/NNAF/M308934, the primary name Ab Kettleby Manor, historical forms Abkettleby and Kettleby, and the associated place Ab Kettleby, Leicestershire identify the manor as the Ab Kettleby estate, distinct from Eye-Kettleby/Kettleby Parva near Melton Mowbray.
Representative point: 52.8005, -0.9283
Basis: documented_manor_house — The surviving Manor House on the north side of Warnaby Road is officially recorded by Historic England as the former manor house of Ab Kettleby, at National Grid Reference SK 72348 23089. The decimal coordinate is an appropriate rounded WGS84 conversion of that listed building location.
Point confidence: high
Boundary status: representative_point_only
Boundary period: Not established
Boundary confidence: none
Boundary basis: The sources establish the manor's location and provide medieval and later references to the manor or lordship, but no reliable manor map, estate plan, mapped rental, enclosure record, tithe reconstruction, or other source was located that defines the perimeter of the historical manorial land. The parish, conservation area, scheduled monument boundary, and modern settlement extent cannot safely be substituted for the manor. The nearby medieval moated site is separately recorded and may have had Launde Abbey or grange connections; Historic England does not establish that it represents the whole manor.
Sources:
- Manor House, Ab Kettleby - Historic England NHLE 1075107: https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1075107 — Officially identifies the Grade II* Manor House on Warnaby Road, Ab Kettleby, as a former manor house; gives National Grid Reference SK 72348 23089 and describes the early seventeenth-century building.
- Moated site at Ab Kettleby - Historic England NHLE 1010705: https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1010705 — Locates the separate medieval moated site east of St James's Church at SK 72495 22859 and states that its possible Launde Abbey or grange connection is uncertain; it does not define the territorial extent of Ab Kettleby Manor.
- Ab-Kettleby Conservation Appraisal - Melton Borough Council: https://www.melton.gov.uk/media/fi2hxiys/ab_kettleby-appraisal.pdf — Places the historic village core, the seventeenth-century Manor House, St James's Church, and the separate moated site in relation to one another, while confirming that the conservation-area boundary is a modern heritage designation rather than a manor boundary.
- History and Antiquities of Leicestershire, volume 3, digitised copy: https://leicester.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/api/collection/p15407coll6/id/4220/download — Reports that Joan de Driby held the manor of Ketilby in 1323 and that she granted the manors of Holwell and Ketilby to John de Driby shortly before her death in 1329; these references confirm the historical manor name but do not supply a complete mapped perimeter.
- Ab Kettleby Manor - The National Archives Discovery: https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/c/F284904 — Registry record F284904 supplied for the exact manor identification and archival authority context.
Warnings / uncertainty:
- No defensible historical manorial polygon was located.
- Do not use the modern civil parish, conservation area, scheduled monument boundary, or settlement outline as a substitute for the manor extent.
- The medieval moated site beside St James's Church is not treated as the manor house or as the full territorial boundary.
About the Manor
Ab Kettleby Manor was the manorial estate of Ab Kettleby, historically also styled Abkettleby or Kettleby, in the parish of Ab Kettleby, Leicestershire. The settlement was recorded in Domesday Book in 1086 as Chetelbi. The surviving Manor House is an early seventeenth-century ironstone building, formerly the village manor house and later a farmhouse. A separate medieval moated site lies beside St James's Church; Historic England records possible proprietorial or monastic connections between that site and Launde Abbey, but the evidence does not establish that Launde Abbey held the manor itself. The manor should not be confused with Eye-Kettleby, also called Kettleby Parva or Kettleby Beler, near Melton Mowbray.
Ownership / Holder Account
The earliest identified estate record is the Domesday entry of 1086, when Chetelbi was held by Gerard under Robert de Bucy. The medieval manor is securely recorded in 1323 in the possession of Joan de Driby, held of Ralph Basset of Weldon by knight service. Shortly before Joan's death in 1329, she granted the manors of Holwell and Ketelby to her son John de Driby and his heirs; the grant is also reflected in the contemporary inquisitorial evidence summarized by later antiquarian historians. The available sources then leave a substantial documentary gap in the direct descent of this manor. Some fourteenth- and fifteenth-century records concern rents, knight's fees, or lands in Abkettleby and Holwell, but they do not securely establish an unbroken succession of manor lords and are therefore not treated as conveyances of the whole manor. By 1846 the Earl of Dysart was recorded as lord of the manor, and the same lordship is recorded in directories and gazetteers in the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The transfer from the medieval Driby holding to the Dysart lordship has not been established from the sources located.
Manorial Rights & Privileges
Historic manorial rights / privileges (1)
Tenure by knight service
Provisional
In 1323 Joan de Driby was recorded as holding the manor of Ab Kettleby of Ralph Basset of Weldon by knight service.
Conveyance & Descent
First holder to present holder: blood proximity & distance travelled
First recorded holder: Gerard
Present holder:
Recorded title journey: 4 holder entries in this manor's saved Conveyance & Descent history.
No recorded holder currently has a usable saved direct-blood or collateral-blood relationship path from which to calculate proximity percentages.
First recorded holder → present holder
A usable saved blood relationship path between the first recorded holder and the present holder has not yet been recorded, so that first-to-present genealogical distance cannot be calculated.
Transfer: Domesday record; no conveyance stated
Holding arrangement: Other
Shared holding: Domesday tenant under Robert de Bucy
Previous holder: Robert de Bucy, as superior lord or overlord in the Domesday formulation
The Domesday Book entry for Chetelbi, identified with Ab Kettleby, records Gerard holding the estate from Robert de Bucy. This is direct evidence of a Domesday holding relationship, but the wording represents Gerard as a tenant under Robert de Bucy rather than necessarily as an independent freeholder. The entry is therefore classified as an overlordship or tenancy relationship rather than as an unqualified sole ownership entry.
Source: Domesday Book Online, Leicestershire A-G, entry for Ab Kettleby/Chetelbi: Chetelbi, Gerard from Robert de Bucy. — source link
Transfer: Earlier acquisition not established in the cited sources; recorded as holding the manor in 1323. Before her death in 1329 she granted the manor of Holwell and Ketelby to her son John de Driby and his heirs.
Previous holder: Unknown; documentary descent into Joan de Driby's possession is not established here
Nichols's History and Antiquities of Leicestershire states that in 1323 Joan de Driby held the manor of Ketilby of Ralph lord Basset of Weldon by knight service. The same source records that, before Joan's death in 1329, she gave or granted her manor of Ketilby, together with Holwell, to John de Driby, her son and heir. The tenure from Ralph Basset is feudal lordship or overlordship and does not mean that Ralph Basset was the immediate owner of Joan's manor.
Source: John Nichols, The History and Antiquities of the County of Leicester, volume 1, Abkettleby section, citing Esc. 17 Edward II, no. 189, Leicestershire, and related inquisitions. — source link
Transfer: Grant by Joan de Driby, his mother, shortly before her death, of the manors of Holwell and Ketelby to John de Driby and his heirs
Previous holder: Joan de Driby, Lady of Tattershall in the cited genealogical context
The 1329 inquisitorial evidence, as reported by Nichols and corroborated by a modern transcription of the inquisition, states that Joan de Driby granted her manor of Holwell and Ketelby to her son John de Driby and his heirs shortly before her death. Later records show members of the Driby-related and Basset-related families holding various rents, knight's fees and lands in Abkettleby and Holwell, but the sources located do not provide a sufficiently clear and continuous descent of the whole manor after John de Driby. No later medieval conveyance is therefore asserted.
Source: John Nichols, The History and Antiquities of the County of Leicester, volume 1, Abkettleby section; the underlying evidence is identified as an inquisition concerning Joan de Driby in 1329. — source link
Transfer: Unknown; recorded as lord of the manor by 1846, with the same lordship reported in later nineteenth- and early twentieth-century directories
Shared holding: Dysart lordship
Previous holder: Unknown; substantial documentary gap separates this record from the medieval Driby holding
William White's 1846 directory records that the Earl of Dysart was lord of the manor of Ab Kettleby, while the soil belonged chiefly to other named landowners. The Imperial Gazetteer of approximately 1870, later directories, and a twentieth-century county directory continue to identify the Earl of Dysart as lord of the manor. These sources establish the later manorial lordship but do not identify the conveyance by which it passed from the medieval owners or the precise individual holding the earldom at each date. The distinction between lordship and ownership of the soil is explicit in the 1846 description.
Source: William White, History, Gazetteer, and Directory of Leicestershire and Rutland, 1846, entry for Ab Kettleby; corroborated by the Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales, circa 1870, and a later Leicestershire county directory. — source link
Corrections / Challenges
Sign in to challenge or submit evidence against a recorded assertion.
JSON API
Machine-readable published manor data, including public images, mapped land areas, notes, rights, conveyances, relationships, records, source/document-library entries and public file links.
https://manorialregistry.com/index.php?rest_route=/mhr/v1/manor/ab-kettleby-manorPublic API access is currently disabled. Authorised API clients must use a private X-MHR-API-Key; currently only administrator keys are enabled.
Private source files, pending edits, moderation/admin information, user API keys and non-public import identifiers are not returned.