ALDERMASTON MANOR

Identity: confirmed — The registry name, historical form Aldermarston, Berkshire location, and associated court-roll and rental references consistently identify the historic manor of Aldermaston in the parish of Aldermaston, Berkshire. Medieval and later sources identify Aldermaston Manor and its manor house at Aldermaston Court/Aldermaston Park, beside St Mary's Church.
Representative point: 51.3801, -1.1457
Basis: documented_manor_house — Approximate WGS84 conversion of West Berkshire Historic Environment Record grid reference SU 595 649 for the site of the old Aldermaston Manor House. The earlier manor house stood close to the west end of Aldermaston church; the later Aldermaston Court was built approximately 150 metres south.
Point confidence: medium
Boundary status: representative_point_only
Boundary period: Medieval and early-modern manor; later estate evidence extends into the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Boundary confidence: none
Boundary basis: The sources establish the manor's location and describe later park and estate land, but no source located provides a documented polygon or sufficiently explicit historical perimeter for the manorial land itself. The later Aldermaston Court park, the modern parish, and the twentieth-century estate are not safe substitutes for the historical manor boundary.
Sources:
- West Berkshire Historic Environment Record: Site of old Aldermaston Manor House - general location, MWB19965: https://www.heritagegateway.org.uk/Gateway/Results_Single.aspx?resourceID=1030&uid=MWB19965 — Identifies the approximate site of the earlier Aldermaston Manor House at grid reference SU 595 649, close to the west end of the church, and records the surviving cellar foundations.
- Historic England: Aldermaston Court, Register of Parks and Gardens, entry 1000530: https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1000530 — Confirms that Aldermaston Park was associated with the manor, that the manor house was rebuilt in 1636, and that a new house was built on a different site after the 1843 fire. It also distinguishes the later park boundaries from the earlier manor history.
- Mapping the Medieval Countryside: E-CIPM 23-635, Aldermaston holding in the 1431 inquisition: https://inquisitionspostmortem.ac.uk/view/inquisition/23-635/index.html — Provides primary medieval evidence naming Aldermaston as a manor, held in chief as a knight's fee, and confirms the continuing identity of the manor in 1431.
- The National Archives Discovery: F245919, Aldermaston Manor: https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/c/F245919 — Registry record supplied for the exact manor, with the associated authority/reference GB/NNAF/M204557.
- Aldermaston History: Aldermaston Manor House - 1636: https://www.aldermastonhistory.org.uk/places/aldermaston-court/aldermaston-manor-house-1636 — Local historical account locating successive manor houses beside the church and describing the 1636 rebuilding and surviving cellar evidence.
Warnings / uncertainty:
- The returned point represents the documented old manor-house site, not the centroid of the full manorial territory.
- No historically defensible manor-land polygon was found. The later Aldermaston Park or estate should not be treated as the medieval or early-modern manor boundary.
- The Historic Environment Record gives SU 595 649 as a general location, so the decimal coordinates should not be interpreted as a surveyed building footprint.