ARUNDEL HONOUR

Identity: confirmed — The TNA/MDR record, authority reference GB/NNAF/M273198, registry location at Arundel, and the associated Arundel Castle archival accounts, court rolls, surveys and rentals consistently identify the composite Honour of Arundel administered from Arundel Castle. This was an honour or lordship comprising dispersed rights, manors and territorial jurisdictions rather than one compact manor parcel.
Representative point: 50.8550, -0.5537
Basis: documented_estate_centre — Arundel Castle was the caput and principal administrative centre of the Honour of Arundel. Historic England identifies the castle as the medieval seat associated with the Honour and gives National Grid Reference TQ 01918 07254, corresponding approximately to 50.8550, -0.5537 WGS84.
Point confidence: high
Boundary status: representative_point_only
Boundary period:
Boundary confidence: none
Boundary basis: The evidence establishes a historically extensive and dispersed honour, with constituent manors, hundreds, fees, parks, woods and court jurisdictions. Historical descriptions associate the honour at different periods with the Rapes of Arundel and Chichester and with numerous dispersed properties. No authoritative source located provides a single boundary polygon for the exact registry record and a defined historical date. A modern parish, rape, district or county boundary would not be a valid substitute.
Sources:
- The National Archives: ARUNDEL HONOUR, TNA/MDR record F255159: https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/c/F255159 — Exact registry record supplied for the manor identity, with authority/reference GB/NNAF/M273198 and location Arundel, Sussex.
- Historic England: Arundel Castle, List Entry 1027926: https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1027926 — Identifies Arundel Castle at National Grid Reference TQ 01918 07254 and records its medieval construction for Roger de Montgomery, who was granted Arundel, with the castle and Honour subsequently passing through the Fitzalan and Howard lines.
- Arundel Castle Archives: Box lists of the uncatalogued collections: https://www.arundelcastle.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Box-list-of-uncatalogued-collections.pdf — The archive catalogue records material for Arundel Honour and Arundel cum membris, including accounts, court material and documents concerning suitors from various parishes in the Rape of Arundel, supporting a dispersed and jurisdictional extent rather than a single compact estate polygon.
- Castles and Abbeys of England, volume I, section on Arundel Castle: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/63088/old/63088-h/63088-h.htm — Historical account states that the Honour of Arundel comprised the Rapes of Chichester and Arundel and was a large territorial lordship; useful for broad historical context but not sufficient to define a precise polygon for the registry record.
Warnings / uncertainty:
- The Honour of Arundel is not equivalent to the modern civil parish of Arundel or to the present-day Arundel Castle estate.
- Its territorial composition changed over time and included dispersed manors, fees, hundreds, parks, woods and jurisdictional rights.
- No boundary polygon is returned because the available evidence does not document one exact, date-specific perimeter for this registry record.