BADLINGHAM MANOR

Identity: confirmed — The registry location and associated place identify Badlingham in the parish of Chippenham, Cambridgeshire. The National Heritage List identifies a surviving Grade II Badlingham Manor at Badlingham, Chippenham, and the archival evidence independently records the manor under the same place-name, including a 1334 court roll and a 1659 map of lands held of the manor.
Representative point: 52.30990, 0.46070
Basis: documented_manor_house — Surviving Grade II-listed Badlingham Manor, a sixteenth-century house on an earlier manorial site, within a rectangular moated site at Badlingham.
Point confidence: high
Boundary status: representative_point_only
Boundary period: Medieval to early modern; especially documented by records from 1423, 1443, 1659 and the seventeenth/eighteenth centuries.
Boundary confidence: none
Boundary basis: The evidence establishes the manor house and indicates that the manor's territorial property was not necessarily identical to the modern parish or hamlet. Medieval records distinguish the manor of Badlingham from associated land called le Grange, while a 1423 conveyance records additional meadow and pasture in Freckenham. Later archival descriptions record substantial arable, meadow, pasture, furze/heath and tithe interests in Chippenham and Badlingham. A 1659 map of lands held of the manor is catalogued, but its mapped perimeter or parcel data could not be inspected sufficiently to reconstruct a defensible polygon. The historical extent therefore remains unresolved and should not be replaced by the modern Chippenham parish boundary.
Sources:
- National Archives: Badlingham Manor record F274999: https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/c/F274999 — Registry record for the manor, associated with Chippenham, Cambridgeshire.
- National Archives: 1334 court roll, Honour of Richmond, SC 2/155/71: https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/N16256605 — Contemporary manorial court-roll reference linking Badlingham Manor with the Honour of Richmond.
- Spalding Gentlemen's Society: 1659 map of lands holden of the manor: https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/N16258933 — Direct map reference for lands held of Badlingham Manor; the catalogue establishes the existence of the map but does not provide an inspectable boundary in the available record.
- Historic England: Badlingham Manor, NHLE 1126373: https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1126373 — Identifies the surviving manor house at Badlingham, Chippenham, and describes its sixteenth-century fabric, earlier foundation and associated moat.
- Feet of Fines: CP 25/1/291/65: https://www.medievalgenealogy.org.uk/fines/abstracts/CP_25_1_291_65.shtml — A 1423 conveyance records the manor of Badlyngham in Cambridgeshire and separately records 36 acres of meadow and 60 acres of pasture in Freckenham.
- Mapping the Medieval Countryside: Inquisition Post Mortem 26-082: https://inquisitionspostmortem.ac.uk/view/inquisition/26-082/88.html — A 1443 inquisition records the manor of Badlingham and a separate messuage with 200 acres of land, meadow and pasture called le Grange, described in the charter as the manor of Badlingham.
- Cambridgeshire Archives catalogue: Badlingham estate and manor records: https://calm.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/Record.aspx?id=F%2F0006&src=CalmView.Persons — Later conveyance descriptions include the Manor of Badlingham with lands, tenements and tithes, and an extent listing arable, meadow, pasture, furze/heath and pasture interests in Chippenham and Badlingham.
- Sunnica Energy Farm Environmental Statement, Cultural Heritage chapter: https://nsip-documents.planninginspectorate.gov.uk/published-documents/EN010106-001782-SEF_ES_6.1_Chapter%207%20Cultural%20Heritage.pdf — Places Badlingham Manor in the Badlingham hamlet of Chippenham and confirms the moated historic manorial site.
Warnings / uncertainty:
- The representative coordinates are for the surviving manor house, not the centre of all historical manorial lands.
- The 1659 map is a strong lead for reconstructing the estate extent, but no reliable polygon can be extracted from the accessible catalogue data.
- Documented associated property extended beyond the manor-house site and included at least some land in Freckenham; the historical manor should not be modelled as the modern Chippenham parish boundary.