BARKESTONE MANOR

Identity: confirmed — The TNA/MDR record F284915 is specifically titled Barkestone Manor and is located at Barkestone, Leicestershire. The associated Belvoir Castle accounts and court rolls, together with historical directories identifying the Duke of Rutland as lord of the manor of Barkestone, consistently connect this manor with Barkestone-le-Vale in the Vale of Belvoir, rather than with another same-named place.
Representative point: 52.9057, -0.8444
Basis: supported_manorial_centre — The point corresponds to Manor Farmhouse/The Manor on Plungar Lane, Barkestone-le-Vale, at OS grid reference SK778348. The property is explicitly identified as Manor Farmhouse and is located within the historical Barkestone settlement; the adjacent address is also recorded as The Manor. This is the best surviving mapped manorial-centre candidate, although the sources do not conclusively prove that the present building is the medieval or early-modern manor house.
Point confidence: medium
Boundary status: representative_point_only
Boundary period: Medieval to early modern manor; later manorial administration documented through 1683
Boundary confidence: none
Boundary basis: The evidence confirms the manor's location and association with Barkestone and the Belvoir Castle estate, but no accessible source supplies a manor-specific boundary map, rental map, survey, or parcel schedule sufficient to reconstruct the historical manorial extent. The published acreage figures for Barkestone refer to the parish or civil administrative unit and cannot safely be substituted for the manor's territorial boundary.
Sources:
- The National Archives, Manorial Documents Register: Barkestone Manor, record F284915: https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/c/F284915 — Primary registry record identifying the exact manor as Barkestone Manor in Barkestone, Leicestershire.
- The National Archives, account with other manors, 1400-1500: https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/N17008154 — Belvoir Castle-held account record linking Barkestone Manor with the Belvoir estate records.
- The National Archives, account roll with other manors, 1477-1478: https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/N17008408 — Account roll held among the Hastings/Belvoir-related records and identified as including Barkestone.
- The National Archives, court rolls with Belvoir, 1520-1683: https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/N17008622 — Court-roll series documenting Barkestone's continuing manorial connection with Belvoir through 1683.
- Manor Farmhouse, Barkestone-le-Vale, Historic England reference 1075012: https://britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/101075012-manor-farmhouse-redmile — Provides the mapped location OS SK778348 and coordinates 52.9057, -0.8444 for the surviving Manor Farmhouse in Barkestone-le-Vale.
- Plungar Lane, Barkestone-le-Vale property and map information: https://www.streetlist.co.uk/ng/ng13/ng13-0/plungar-lane — Records The Manor on Plungar Lane at approximately 52.904316, -0.846160 and confirms the local manorial place-name context.
- History of Barkestone, Vision of Britain through Time: https://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/10601 — Confirms Barkestone as the historical Leicestershire parish in the Vale of Belvoir and provides historical administrative context; its acreage figures are not treated as the manor boundary.
- Kelly's Directory of Leicestershire and Rutland, Barkestone entry: https://forebears.io/england/leicestershire/barkestone — States that the Duke of Rutland was lord of the manor and principal landowner of Barkestone, supporting the link between the manor and the Belvoir estate.
Warnings / uncertainty:
- The historical manorial extent should not be represented by the modern Barkestone parish, former civil parish, or present Redmile parish boundary.
- The representative point is a best-supported manorial-centre candidate, not a proven medieval manor-house location.
- No historically grounded polygon could be established from the accessible evidence; injecting a boundary polygon would risk conflating the manor with the parish or later estate holdings.