AUSTERSON MANOR

Identity: confirmed — The registry record is for the Cheshire manor associated with Austerson. The historical form Alstanton is independently recorded as an alternative name for the manor of Austerson, while the TNA Manorial Documents Register identifies the relevant 1511-1628 rental and 1533-1635 court-procedure records under the Austerson manor record. The place, parish and historic-name evidence distinguish it from other similarly named places.
Representative point: 53.0405, -2.5142
Basis: documented_manor_house — Former site of Austerson Old Hall at Old Hall, Austerson, identified by OS grid reference SJ656493. Austerson Old Hall was a historic manor-house/hall building later dismantled and re-erected at Alvanley; the surviving listed barn is recorded as being south-east of the former hall site.
Point confidence: medium
Boundary status: representative_point_only
Boundary period: Insufficiently documented; references span at least the medieval period to 1635, with later ownership evidence continuing into the modern period.
Boundary confidence: none
Boundary basis: The available evidence establishes the manor's location and a manorial hall site, but does not provide an accessible manor map, survey, rental map, tithe material explicitly defining the manor's perimeter, or a reliable scholarly reconstruction of the historical manorial land extent. Austerson's historic township acreage and civil-parish boundary cannot safely be substituted for the manor boundary.
Sources:
- Manorial Documents Register: Austerson Manor, record F286816: https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/c/F286816 — Official TNA/MDR record for the exact Austerson manor entry and authority reference GB/NNAF/M312858.
- Rental of Austerson Manor, 1511-1628, DNE/4: https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/N17257091 — Cheshire Archives record for the identified Austerson manorial rental series.
- Court procedures of Austerson Manor, 1533-1635, DNE/3: https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/N17257141 — Cheshire Archives record for court-procedure material belonging to the same manor record.
- Austerson Old Hall, Historic England list entry 1312735: https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1312735 — Confirms that Austerson Old Hall was dismantled and removed from Austerson near Nantwich and re-erected at Alvanley, demonstrating the existence and relocation of the historic Austerson hall building.
- Barn south-east of the former Austerson Old Hall, Historic England list entry 1138569: https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1138569 — Places the former Austerson Old Hall site in the SJ656493 grid square and records the associated late-sixteenth-century listed barn.
- Cheshire Manor Houses: Sandstone Trail: https://sandstonetrail.co.uk/cheshire-black-and-white-architecture_on-the-sandstone-trail/ — Identifies Austerson Old Hall as one of the Cheshire manor houses and notes its relocation near Alvanley.
- Bulkeley Family genealogy, including the manor of Austerson or Alstanton: https://www.seekingmyroots.com/members/files/G000957.pdf — Records the historical equivalence of Austerson and Alstanton and traces the manor's ownership succession.
- Kelly's Directory of Cheshire, Austerson entry: https://leicester.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/api/collection/p16445coll4/id/52907/download — Describes Austerson as a historic township and records the lord of the manor and approximate township acreage; useful contextual evidence but not sufficient to define the manor boundary.
Warnings / uncertainty:
- The representative point is based on the former Austerson Old Hall site, not the relocated building at Alvanley.
- The historic township area of approximately 950 acres is not treated as the manor's territorial boundary.
- No historically defensible manor polygon was found in the accessible evidence; a polygon would risk substituting the township or civil-parish boundary for the manorial extent.