ABBOTS BICKINGTON MANOR

Identity: confirmed — The TNA/MDR record F276374 names Abbots Bickington Manor and places it at Abbots Bickington, Devon. Independent historical evidence identifies Abbots Bickington as the manor historically held by Hartland Abbey and later associated with Court Barton, the manor-house seat immediately south of the parish church.
Representative point: 50.8989, -4.3008
Basis: documented_manor_house — Court Barton is identified as the seat of the Abbots Bickington manor in historical biographical evidence; the modern Court Barton postcode location is approximately SS383135, at 50.8989, -4.3008.
Point confidence: medium
Boundary status: representative_point_only
Boundary period:
Boundary confidence: none
Boundary basis: The available evidence confirms the manor's location and indicates that Court Barton was its manorial seat, but does not expose a reliable historical manor-boundary polygon. The 1690 survey and 1850 map are relevant archival leads, yet their mapped parcel extents could not be verified sufficiently to reconstruct the manorial perimeter. The documented 1,078-acre figure refers to the historical parish/settlement description and cannot safely be substituted for the manor's territorial boundary.
Sources:
- The National Archives: Abbots Bickington Manor, TNA/MDR record F276374: https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/c/F276374 — Registry record identifying the exact manor as Abbots Bickington Manor.
- Devon Archives catalogue: 1690 survey with other manors, reference 96M/add. vols./1: https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/N16431157 — Archival survey lead directly associated with the manor record.
- Devon Archives catalogue: 1850 map, reference 96M/7140/Maps: https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/N16435652 — Archival map lead directly associated with the manor record.
- Heritage Gateway: Abbots Bickington, HER MDV29108: https://www.heritagegateway.org.uk/gateway/Results_Single.aspx?resourceID=104&uid=MDV29108 — Places Abbots Bickington at SS384133 and records that the manor was held by Hartland Abbey from 1189 until the Dissolution.
- Sir Amyas Pollard, 3rd Baronet: historical account: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Amyas_Pollard%2C_3rd_Baronet — States that Pollard moved to Abbots Bickington and made his seat at Court Barton immediately south of the parish church.
- Court Barton Cottages postcode location: https://checkmypostcode.uk/ex227lq — Provides the approximate modern coordinate 50.8989, -4.3008 for Court Barton, Abbots Bickington.
Warnings / uncertainty:
- The representative coordinate is based on the documented historical manorial seat at Court Barton, not on a surveyed manor-house footprint.
- No defensible historical manor boundary polygon was established; do not inject the modern civil-parish boundary as the manor boundary.
- The archival 1690 survey and 1850 map should be examined directly through Devon Archives for possible future boundary reconstruction.