ALCHORNES MANOR

Identity: confirmed — The registry name ALCHORNES MANOR matches the historical form Alchornes/Alchorne Manor in Rotherfield, Sussex. The supplied alternative name Alchone is consistent with the Domesday and later forms. The National Archives and East Sussex/Sackville archive references identify a distinct Manor of Alchornes with court books, rentals, surveys and related records.
Representative point: 51.04805, 0.14817
Basis: supported_manorial_centre — Crowborough Beacon Golf Club and the adjoining Crowborough Common occupy the best documented surviving location associated with the manor. The common was historically the waste of the Manor of Alchorne, and local historical research places the lost manor near this area, although no manor house has been identified.
Point confidence: medium
Boundary status: representative_point_only
Boundary period: Medieval to early modern; surviving evidence especially concerns the manor in the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries
Boundary confidence: none
Boundary basis: The evidence securely locates part of the manor at Crowborough Common/Crowborough Beacon and identifies the manor's waste, common rights and associated tenements. However, the available sources do not provide a sufficiently clear, complete historical perimeter for the whole manor. The manor may have included dispersed freehold, copyhold and demesne parcels in and around Rotherfield, and the surviving references to individual holdings do not establish a defensible continuous boundary. Modern Crowborough, Rotherfield parish, or the golf-course boundary cannot safely be substituted for the historical manorial extent.
Sources:
- The National Archives: Alchornes Manor record F254791: https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/c/F254791 — Registry record identifying the manor as Alchornes Manor, associated with Rotherfield, Sussex, with historical form Alchone.
- Archive of the Sackville family, Earls De La Warr: https://www.thekeep.info/collections/getrecord/GB179_DLW — Lists the Alchornes Manor court books, rentals, estreats and accounts, including ADA/38, ADA/39, ADA/45, ADA/47, ADA/49, ADA/50, ADA/52, ADA/53, ADA/106, ADA/113 and U269/M65-66.
- Manor of Alchorne: Crowborough Common Official Site: https://www.crowboroughcommon.org/manor_of_alchorne — States that Crowborough Common was formerly the waste of the Manor of Alchorne, purchased from the Earl De La Warr in 1906, and that no documentary evidence of a manor house has been traced; identifies the area as the surviving principal location of the lost manor.
- Sussex Extensive Urban Survey: Crowborough report and maps: https://www.westsussex.gov.uk/media/2105/crowborough_eus_report_maps.pdf — States that the part of Alchornes Manor retaining the name Crowborough Common was leased to Crowborough Golf Club in 1895 and that the manorial rights were bought by the club from the Earl De La Warr in 1905.
- Crowborough Beacon Golf Club mapped location: https://mapcarta.com/W267403748 — Provides the mapped position of Crowborough Beacon Golf Club at approximately 51.04805, 0.14817, used as the representative point for the documented manor-associated common.
- The Weald: Adams Farm and Alchornes-related 1597 bounds: https://theweald.org/P2.asp?PId=Cr.AdamsF — Transcribes the 1597 Buckhurst Terrier reference to Isaac Alchorne's Newland and Old Rede, 60 acres, bounded by Crowborough Common, roads and neighbouring holdings, demonstrating associated manorial land near the common.
- The Weald: Sweethaws and Alchornes-related 1597 bounds: https://theweald.org/P3.asp?PId=Cr.Sweet — Transcribes the 1597 Buckhurst Terrier reference to John Alchorne's 160-acre Sweethawes holding, bounded by Crowborough Common and neighbouring holdings, further confirming the manor-associated landscape.
Warnings / uncertainty:
- No defensible complete historical polygon was found.
- The representative point is not a documented manor-house site: historical research describes Alchorne as a lost manor and states that no manor house has been documented.
- Crowborough Common is documented as the manor's waste, but it should not be treated as the complete extent of Alchornes Manor.
- The exact Domesday location and the full medieval and early-modern territorial extent remain uncertain.
- The coordinate is suitable as a research map injection point only, not as a claimed legal or historical boundary.