ASHBURY MANOR

Identity: confirmed — The registry name and Berkshire location match the documented Ashbury manor held by Glastonbury Abbey and later by the Craven family. The associated court rolls, rentals, surveys and common-rights records are explicitly consistent with this manor. The surviving late-15th-century manor house is also known as Chapel Manor House or Chapel Manor, north of Ashbury village.
Representative point: 51.5659, -1.6230
Basis: documented_manor_house — Approximate WGS84 conversion of OS National Grid reference SU 262 853, published for Ashbury Chapel Manor. The identification is corroborated by architectural and historical studies describing the surviving Chapel Manor House as the medieval Ashbury manor house.
Point confidence: medium
Boundary status: representative_point_only
Boundary period: Medieval to early sixteenth century, with later manorial records continuing into the eighteenth century
Boundary confidence: none
Boundary basis: The available evidence establishes the manor house and describes the historical demesne, but does not provide a sufficiently clear perimeter for the whole manorial holding. A thirteenth-century survey records approximately 667 acres of arable land in the East and West common fields, about 129 acres of meadow, woodland and other appurtenances; the 1519 terrier identifies named meadow, pasture and common areas. These are dispersed manorial holdings and cannot safely be converted into a boundary polygon without consulting the original surveys, maps or parcel-level archive material.
Sources:
- The National Archives: Ashbury Manor, TNA/MDR record F241281: https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/c/F241281 — Registry record identifying the exact manor as Ashbury Manor in Berkshire.
- Royal Berkshire Archives: 1572 court roll, D/EC/M127: https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/N14293846 — Manorial court record associated with Ashbury Manor.
- Royal Berkshire Archives: extracts from surveys and extents, 1629-1660, D/EAH/E10: https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/N14305223 — Survey and extent material for Ashbury and other manors; a lead for reconstructing historical extent.
- Royal Berkshire Archives: Ashbury Manor rental, 1661-1662, D/EC/M138: https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/N14346433 — Rental record confirming continuing manorial administration of Ashbury.
- C. R. J. Currie, 'Greater Medieval Houses of England and Wales: Ashbury, Chapel Manor House': https://www.oxoniensia.org/volumes/1992/currie.pdf — Identifies the surviving Chapel Manor House as the medieval Ashbury manor house, records its Glastonbury Abbey and Craven ownership history, and dates the principal surviving building to the late fifteenth century.
- Ashbury Parish Website, 'Ashbury cum Chapelwick': https://www.ashbury.org.uk/history/livehist/disburybk/ — Local historical account identifying Chapel Manor Farm/House as Ashbury Manor, north of the village, and summarizing its demesne, manor court and building history.
- Berkshire History, Country House Listing: https://www.berkshirehistory.com/castles/country_houses.html — Publishes the location of Ashbury Chapel Manor as OS grid reference SU 262 853 and dates it to 1488.
- Ashbury Parish Website, 'The History of Ashbury Intro': https://www.ashbury.org.uk/wp-content/legacy/histashdisbury.pdf — Summarizes the medieval survey evidence: 667 acres of arable demesne in East and West Fields, meadow, mill, croft and fishpond.
Warnings / uncertainty:
- The representative coordinate is based on a six-figure OS grid reference and is therefore approximate to roughly 100 metres or more; it should not be treated as a surveyed building centroid.
- Ashbury Manor's historical manorial extent is not established by the modern civil parish boundary. The evidence describes dispersed demesne parcels, common fields, meadows, pasture and other rights, so no defensible polygon is returned.
- Ashdown House/Ashdown Park became the lord's seat in the seventeenth century and is associated with the later Ashbury Manor estate, but it is not used as the representative point because the surviving medieval manor house is Chapel Manor House.