ALDWICK (HUNDREDAL) MANOR

Identity: confirmed — The registry record is matched to the historical Manor of Aldwick in the former parish of Pagham, Sussex. The manor is documented in connection with Aldwick Farm, the Aldwick Hundred courts, and the later Lordship of the Manor of Aldwick. Historical evidence distinguishes the manor from the much wider Aldwick Hundred, which included several other tithings and manors.
Representative point: 50.78493, -0.70680
Basis: supported_manorial_centre — Aldwick Farm, 286 Aldwick Road, is the strongest surviving geographic focus for the manor. Aldwick Farm is recorded in the local historical account from 1589 in connection with John Dingley, whose family held Aldwick Manor. The location is within the historic Aldwick settlement and close to Aldwick Green, the documented manorial landscape. The coordinates represent the modern Aldwick Farm address and should be treated as an approximate manorial-centre point rather than the precisely proven medieval manor-house site.
Point confidence: medium
Boundary status: representative_point_only
Boundary period: Medieval to early modern manor; specifically documented for 1397 and later surveys
Boundary confidence: none
Boundary basis: The surviving evidence establishes the manor's location and provides acreage rather than a recoverable perimeter. In 1397 Aldwick Manor contained 152 acres of arable land and 158 acres of pasture, excluding the manor-house site. The historical material also records land loss to the sea, including Malemayns, and later fragmentation of the manor's lands. The Aldwick Hundred was substantially larger than Aldwick Manor and included Aldwick, Pagham, Wittering, Charlton, Crimsham, Bognor, North Bersted, South Mundham, Hoadacre and Drayton; it must not be used as the manor boundary. Although a 1786 plan of Aldwick Manor is reported to have been digitised and rectified in the Sussex Extensive Urban Survey, the accessible web evidence does not provide enough mapped parcel or perimeter information to reconstruct a defensible polygon.
Sources:
- The National Archives: Aldwick (Hundredal) Manor, F255481: https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/c/F255481 — Registry record for the exact manor identification.
- Aldwick Parish Council, Aldwick History: https://aldwickparishcouncil.gov.uk/about-aldwick/aldwick-history/ — States that Aldwick became the administrative centre of the Canterbury estates, records the 1397 acreage of Aldwick Manor, identifies land lost to the sea, and records Aldwick Farm from 1589.
- Aldwick Parish Council, The History of Aldwick PDF: https://aldwickparishcouncil.gov.uk/media/5249/parishdesignstatementjune15.pdf — Provides the same historical account and notes the 1608, 1768 and 1786 manorial surveys, including the changing extent of Charlton and coastal land loss.
- Sussex Archaeological Collections, volume 25: https://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/catalogue/adsdata/arch-285-1/dissemination/pdf/Vol_25_1873/SAC_v025pdfa.pdf — Reports the historical extent and constituent tithings of the Hundred of Aldwick, demonstrating that the hundred was not equivalent to Aldwick Manor.
- Bognor Extensive Urban Survey report and maps: https://www.westsussex.gov.uk/media/1719/bognor_eus_report_and_maps.pdf — Confirms that a plan of Aldwick Manor dated 1786 was among the historical maps digitised and rectified for geographic comparison, but the accessible text does not expose a usable manor perimeter.
- Arun District Council, Aldwick Road character area: https://www.arun.gov.uk/areas-of-character/ — Identifies Aldwick Farm and its historic surroundings as surviving elements of the old Aldwick settlement landscape.
- Aldwick Farm planning record: https://planning.org.uk/app/275/AW/21/25/T — Provides the modern address of Aldwick Farm, 286 Aldwick Road, Aldwick, PO21 3RN, used for the representative coordinate.
Warnings / uncertainty:
- The representative point is a historically supported manorial-centre approximation, not a surveyed medieval manor-house coordinate.
- No defensible historical manor polygon was returned. Do not substitute the modern Aldwick civil parish, the former Pagham parish, or the wider Hundred of Aldwick.
- The later house called Aldwick Manor or Hotham Park House is not used as the representative point because that name was applied to Bersted Lodge after its owner inherited the Lordship in the nineteenth century; it was not demonstrated to be the original medieval manor-house site.
- The manor's territorial extent changed through fragmentation, coastal erosion and later estate transactions; acreage figures from 1397 should not be converted into an invented polygon.