ALTON

Identity: confirmed — The registry record places Alton in Dilwyn, Herefordshire. Independent Herefordshire heritage data identifies Alton Court in Dilwyn as a historic farmstead/building, and a nineteenth-century antiquarian account lists Alton Court among the court-houses of Dilwyn. The archive leads for a fifteenth-century rental and an eighteenth-century map are consistent with a distinct Alton manor in Dilwyn. This is not the separate Alton Court near Ross-on-Wye.
Representative point: 52.17633, -2.84015
Basis: documented_manor_site — Alton Court Farm/Alton Court in Dilwyn, identified in Herefordshire heritage and local planning material as the surviving site associated with the historic Alton court or manor.
Point confidence: medium
Boundary status: representative_point_only
Boundary period: Historical extent not established; relevant evidence includes a rental dated 1400-1500 and a map dated 1755-1760.
Boundary confidence: none
Boundary basis: The catalogue confirms an eighteenth-century map under reference BN81 and a medieval/early modern rental under F78/I/8, but the accessible catalogue records do not provide a digitised map image, parcel schedule, boundary description, or georeferenced perimeter. Available sources locate Alton Court but do not justify substituting the modern Dilwyn parish boundary or constructing a manor polygon.
Sources:
- The National Archives, Manorial Documents Register: Alton, record F280384: https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/c/F280384 — Registry record identifying the manor as Alton in Dilwyn, Herefordshire, with authority/reference GB/NNAF/M303592.
- Herefordshire Through Time: Alton Court, Dilwyn: https://htt.herefordshire.gov.uk/her-search/sources/search/source?ID=SHE17621 — Herefordshire heritage index identifies HER 4692 as Alton Court, Dilwyn, a historic building/farmstead.
- Alton Court Farm, Dilwyn map location: https://mapcarta.com/W813242861 — Provides the mapped location of Alton Court Farm at approximately 52.17633, -2.84015; the coordinate is used as a representative manor-site point, not as evidence for a boundary.
- Antiquities of Dilwyn, Archaeologia Cambrensis: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/59/Archaeologia_cambrensis_%28IA_archaeologiacamb1868unse%29.pdf — Historical account listing Alton Court among Dilwyn's court-houses, supporting identification of Alton Court as a manorial or court site.
- The National Archives, rental with other manors, F78/I/8: https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/N16646905 — Archive catalogue lead for a rental dated 1400-1500, relevant to the historical territorial and tenurial extent of Alton.
- The National Archives, map, BN81: https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/N16650971 — Archive catalogue lead for a map dated 1755-1760, potentially the strongest boundary source, but no accessible digitised perimeter was available.
Warnings / uncertainty:
- The representative point is for the historic Alton Court/manor site in Dilwyn and should not be interpreted as the centre of the whole manorial territory.
- No historically defensible polygon was found in the accessible web evidence.
- Do not use the modern Dilwyn parish boundary as a substitute for the manor boundary.
- A separate Alton Court near Ross-on-Wye was excluded as a same-named but different place.