BARKING MANOR

Identity: confirmed — The TNA/MDR record F247846 and authority GB/NNAF/M240120 identify the paramount Manor of Barking in Essex. The associated archival material includes Barking manor court rolls, rentals, surveys and maps, including the 1609-1610 survey and the 1653 manorial map. Historical sources distinguish this large paramount manor from subordinate manors such as Jenkins, Parsloes, Eastbury and Westbury.
Representative point: 51.535893, 0.075469
Basis: supported_manorial_centre — Barking Abbey was the historic institutional centre and original lord of the manor. The representative point is taken from the documented Barking Abbey site, approximately 80 metres north-northwest of St Margaret's Church in Barking.
Point confidence: medium
Boundary status: representative_point_only
Boundary period: Medieval to early modern; especially evidenced by the 1456 rental and the 1609-1610 and 1653 surveys/maps
Boundary confidence: medium
Boundary basis: The surviving evidence establishes a very extensive manorial territory, not a modern administrative boundary. A 1456 description divides the manor into a northern portion comprising northern Barking, Chadwell and Ilford, and a southern portion comprising southern Barking and Dagenham. A local-authority historical appraisal likewise states that the Manor of Barking comprised Barking, Ilford and Dagenham. The archival leads show that detailed surveys and maps existed, including the 1609-1610 survey, the 1649-1660 survey of a parcel with West Ham, and the 1653 map showing Barking and Dagenham, but no sufficiently accessible, georeferenced perimeter of the whole historical manor was found. The evidence is therefore insufficient to reconstruct a defensible polygon without risking substitution of parish or later administrative boundaries.
Sources:
- The National Archives, Manorial Documents Register: Barking Manor, F247846: https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/c/F247846 — Registry record for the exact manor, identified as Barking Manor in Barking, Essex, authority GB/NNAF/M240120.
- Historic England: Barking Abbey, Scheduled Monument 1003581: https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1003581/ — Documents the Barking Abbey site and gives National Grid Reference TQ 44060 83796, used to derive the representative point at approximately 51.535893, 0.075469.
- Tuck, E., A Sketch of Ancient Barking, its Abbey, and Ilford: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/ba/A_sketch_of_ancient_Barking%2C_its_abbey%2C_and_Ilford_%28IA_sketchofancientb00tuckiala%29.pdf — States that the Manor of Barking was paramount in the Hundred of Becontree, belonged to the abbess and convent of Barking, and describes its historical relationship to subordinate manors and lands.
- Barking Abbey Rental (North), 1456: https://www.barkingdagenhamlocalhistory.co.uk/product-page/barking-abbey-rental-north-1456 — Describes the 1456 rental's northern portion as including northern Barking, Chadwell and Ilford, and its southern portion as including southern Barking and Dagenham.
- Dagenham Village Conservation Area Appraisal: https://lbbd.moderngov.co.uk/documents/s21307/Daniel%20PopeAppendix%20D%20Dagenham%20Village%20Conservation%20Area%20Appraisal%20adop.pdf — States that the Manor of Barking comprised Barking, Ilford and Dagenham, citing the 1653 map made for Thomas Fanshawe.
- London Borough of Barking and Dagenham Libraries: The manor of Barking in 1609: https://libraries.lbbd.gov.uk/manifestations/69DC044957C3442E9D384C5DF4E074%3A1119885 — Catalogues the 1609 work based on the historical manor survey, corroborating the existence of a detailed early-modern survey relevant to territorial reconstruction.
- Essex Archives Online: Copy of tithe map for Barking, based on earlier Barking manor mapping: https://www.essexarchivesonline.co.uk/Result_Details.aspx?DocID=36572 — Records that a later copy was based on a c.1666 tithe map, itself based on the 1653 map of the Manor of Barking, confirming the importance of the lost 1653 map for the manor's geographic extent.
Warnings / uncertainty:
- Do not use the modern London Borough of Barking and Dagenham, Barking parish, Dagenham parish, or any current ward as the manor polygon.
- The historical manor was a large paramount lordship containing or overlording numerous subordinate manors and free tenements; its extent should not be conflated with the acreage of a single manor-house estate.
- The representative point is a supported manorial-centre proxy at Barking Abbey rather than a surviving identified manor house for the whole paramount manor.
- A historical polygon may become feasible if the 1609-1610 survey, 1653 map copies, 1649-1660 survey, or the 1455-1456 rentals are digitised and their named parcels or abuttals are georeferenced.