Location: Great Ness, Shropshire
Places / associated places: Great Ness, Shropshire
Location & Extent
GPS Location & Recorded Land Areas
Representative GPS point: 52.7502, -2.9118
Identity: confirmed — The registry location and associated place Great Ness match the historic Alderton township in Great Ness parish. Historic England identifies Alderton Hall at NGR SJ 38551 17345 within Great Ness parish, and nineteenth-century Shropshire gazetteer evidence identifies Alderton as a separate township of 196 acres whose lord of the manor was also sole proprietor. This distinguishes it from other English Alderton manors.
Representative point: 52.7502, -2.9118
Basis: documented_manor_house — Alderton Hall, the surviving historic hall associated with Alderton Manor, documented by Historic England at OS National Grid Reference SJ 38551 17345. The building is a late-sixteenth-century house dated internally to 1591.
Point confidence: high
Boundary status: representative_point_only
Boundary period: Nineteenth century context; exact medieval or early-modern extent not established
Boundary confidence: none
Boundary basis: The available evidence establishes Alderton as a distinct historic township/manorial locality of approximately 196 acres, with Alderton Hall as its principal historic centre. No accessible source located in this research supplies a documented manor boundary, mapped manorial parcel schedule, or sufficiently explicit perimeter. The 196-acre township figure must not be converted into a guessed polygon, and the Great Ness parish boundary is not substituted for the manor.
Sources:
- Alderton Hall, Great Ness - Historic England List Entry 1055140: https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1055140 — Identifies Alderton Hall in Great Ness parish, gives NGR SJ 38551 17345, and describes the surviving late-sixteenth-century hall dated 1591.
- History, gazetteer, and directory of Shropshire, 1851: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/00/Medical_Heritage_Library_%28IA_b24858821%29.pdf — Describes Alderton as a separate township in Great Ness parish, measuring 196 acres 3 roods 10 perches, with the Earl of Powis as lord of the manor and sole proprietor; also records Alderton Hall.
- The National Archives Discovery record F246544: https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/c/F246544 — Registry record supplied for the exact manor identification: Alderton Manor, Great Ness, Shropshire.
- Shropshire Archives: Parish maps: https://shropshiremaps.org.uk/parish-maps/ — Confirms that historic township and tithe maps are relevant sources for reconstructing land extent, but no accessible Alderton manor boundary map was identified in this research.
Warnings / uncertainty:
- No defensible historical manor polygon was found; boundary injection is unsafe.
- The reported 196 acres describes the historic Alderton township/locality and is not treated as a precisely equivalent manor boundary.
- Alderton Hall is a documented historic manorial centre, but the surviving building is not by itself proof of the full territorial extent of the manor.
About the Manor
Alderton Manor was the manor associated with Alderton, a small township or hamlet in Great Ness, Shropshire, near the River Severn and approximately one and a half miles south-west of Great Ness church. In the nineteenth century Alderton was described as comprising about 196 acres and as having the Earl of Powis as lord of the manor and sole landowner. Alderton Hall, also known historically as Alderton Farmhouse, stands in the township and is a Grade II* listed timber-framed house dated internally 1591 for Richard Heylin. The building evidence establishes the location and the presence of a substantial late-sixteenth-century house, but it does not by itself prove that Richard Heylin was lord of Alderton Manor. Alderton had originally been associated with the wider Domesday manor of Myddle but had separated manorially from Myddle at an early date; the available source does not establish the legal date or instrument of that separation.
Ownership / Holder Account
The secure public evidence located for the manor begins in the nineteenth century. Samuel Bagshaw's History, Gazetteer, and Directory of Shropshire, published in 1851, states that Alderton in Great Ness was a small township and that the Earl of Powis was lord of the manor and sole proprietor. Kelly's Directory of Shropshire repeats the same description in 1895, and the 1913 directory likewise states that the Earl of Powis was lord of the manor and sole landowner. These sources establish continued possession or lordship by the Powis interest across the period 1851-1913, but they do not identify the deed, settlement, inheritance, purchase, or other legal conveyance by which the manor entered the Powis estate. The earlier history remains unresolved. The association of Alderton with Myddle is documented, but the available source says only that Alderton had separated manorially from Myddle at an early date; it does not establish a complete chain of lords. Richard Heylin is directly associated with the construction of Alderton Hall in 1591, but no source found in this research directly identifies him as lord of Alderton Manor, so he has not been entered as a manor holder.
Conveyance & Descent
First holder to present holder: blood proximity & distance travelled
First recorded holder: Earl of Powis
Present holder:
Recorded title journey: 1 holder entry 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: Earlier acquisition by the Powis interest is unknown. The manor is directly attested as being in the hands of the Earl of Powis in 1851, with the same lordship repeated in 1895 and 1913; no intervening conveyance or later historical holder was securely identified.
Shared holding: Powis estate
Previous holder: Unknown
This is a documented period of lordship rather than a reconstructed legal conveyance. Bagshaw's 1851 directory states that the Earl of Powis was lord of Alderton Manor and sole proprietor. Kelly's 1895 directory and a 1913 directory repeat that the Earl of Powis was lord of the manor and sole landowner. Because the sources use the title rather than naming an individual Earl and do not describe the acquisition or any succession in relation to Alderton itself, the holder is retained as Earl of Powis and no inferred transfer between individual Earls is recorded.
Source: Samuel Bagshaw, History, Gazetteer, and Directory of Shropshire (1851), entry for Alderton, Great Ness; Kelly's Directory of Shropshire (1895), entry for Great Ness and Alderton; Kelly's Directory of Shropshire (1913), entry for Great Ness and Alderton. — source link
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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.
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