ATHERSTONE MANOR

Identity: confirmed — The registry name, Mancetter location, and the associated ATH/MR court-roll, account, survey, rent-roll, and manorial-administration records consistently identify the medieval and post-medieval manor of Atherstone centred on the town of Atherstone, historically a township and chapelry within the ancient parish of Mancetter. This is not the separate Atherstone-on-Stour settlement.
Representative point: 52.5769, -1.5455
Basis: documented_manor_house — Atherstone Hall was the residence and principal manor-house site of the lords of Atherstone. The Warwickshire Historic Environment Record places the site 150 metres south of Friary Road, Atherstone, within grid square SP31 98. The returned coordinates are an approximate WGS84 conversion for the documented Hall site, not a claim of metre-level precision.
Point confidence: medium
Boundary status: representative_point_only
Boundary period: Medieval to early modern; extent most clearly documented before enclosure in 1765
Boundary confidence: none
Boundary basis: The evidence confirms that Atherstone Manor included the town's burgage holdings and associated open fields, with enclosure of the Atherstone open fields taking place in 1765. The available web-accessible sources do not provide a manor-specific perimeter, mapped parcel schedule, or sufficiently explicit historical boundary description from which a defensible polygon can be reconstructed. The ancient parish of Mancetter, the modern parish of Atherstone, and the wider Atherstone urban area must therefore not be substituted for the manorial extent.
Sources:
- The National Archives Discovery: Atherstone Manor record F240660: https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/c/F240660 — Registry record supplied for the manor; authority/reference GB/NNAF/M229081 and location Mancetter, Warwickshire.
- Our Warwickshire: The Development of Atherstone: https://www.ourwarwickshire.org.uk/content/article/general-history-atherstone — Identifies Atherstone as a manor and market settlement, historically held by the Abbey of Bec, and describes its development and surrounding open-field context.
- Our Warwickshire: Overview of Work Done on Atherstone House Histories Project: https://www.ourwarwickshire.org.uk/content/article/overview-atherstone-house-histories-project — Explains that Atherstone manor court records and the 1547 survey document the town's burgage holdings and provide the principal historical evidence for the manor's urban landholding.
- Warwickshire Historic Environment Record: Site of Atherstone Hall: https://timetrail.warwickshire.gov.uk/detail.aspx?mode=usertext&monuid=WA270 — Documents the site of Atherstone Hall, describes it as a post-medieval house site, and places it 150 metres south of Friary Road, Atherstone, in grid square SP31 98.
- North Warwickshire Borough Council: Atherstone Conservation Area Appraisal: https://www.northwarks.gov.uk/downloads/file/459/atherstone-conservation-area-appraisals — States that Sir John Repington acquired the manor in the early seventeenth century and established Atherstone Hall on the site of the former Austin Friary; also records the surrounding open fields and their enclosure in the eighteenth century.
- Our Warwickshire: Site of Atherstone Hall: https://www.ourwarwickshire.org.uk/content/catalogue_her/site-of-atherstone-hall — Independent local heritage record corroborating the documented location of the Atherstone Hall site south of Friary Road.
- Warwickshire Historic Environment Record / Historic England: St Mary's House, Atherstone: https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1299873?section=official-list-entry — Provides a precise nearby National Grid reference, SP3089397931, for the Friars Gate historic complex used to anchor the approximate conversion of the Hall-site location.
Warnings / uncertainty:
- The representative coordinates are approximate because the accessible source gives the Hall site as 150 metres south of Friary Road and only supplies the coarse grid-square reference SP31 98.
- Atherstone Hall is used as the best surviving documented manorial centre; it should not be interpreted as the full territorial extent of Atherstone Manor.
- No historically defensible manor boundary polygon was found. The ancient parish of Mancetter and the modern civil parish of Atherstone were deliberately not used as substitutes.