ASTLEY MANOR

Identity: confirmed — The registry location, Tyldesley with Shakerley, matches the historical placement of Astley Manor. The manor house was Astley Hall, now Dam House or the former Administration Block at Astley Hospital, located on Church Road within the historical Tyldesley township near Astley. Historic evidence distinguishes Astley Manor from the separately held Tyldesley Manor after the division of the Tyldesley family lands in 1301.
Representative point: 53.5030, -2.4560
Basis: documented_manor_house — Dam House, formerly Astley Hall and the manor house of Astley, at Historic England National Grid Reference SD 69869 00902, converted approximately to WGS84 decimal coordinates.
Point confidence: high
Boundary status: representative_point_only
Boundary period: Medieval to early modern; later manorial rights and estate holdings continued into the nineteenth century.
Boundary confidence: none
Boundary basis: Sources establish the manor house and associated estate grounds, and identify Astley as a historical manor and township, but do not provide a sufficiently explicit, manor-specific perimeter. The Astley Village Conservation Area and later hospital or estate grounds cannot safely be substituted for the historical manorial boundary.
Sources:
- National Archives Discovery: ASTLEY MANOR, F242199: https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/c/F242199 — Registry record identifying the exact manor as Astley Manor in Tyldesley with Shakerley, Lancashire.
- Historic England: Administration Block at Astley Hospital, formerly Dam House, List Entry 1163258: https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1163258 — Identifies the building on Church Road, formerly listed as Dam House; records National Grid Reference SD 69869 00902 and describes the surviving seventeenth-century manor house fabric.
- Wigan Council: Astley Village, Tyldesley Conservation Area Appraisal: https://www.wigan.gov.uk/Docs/PDF/Resident/Planning-and-Building-Control/Conservation-areas/AstleyCAAppraisal1277kb.pdf — States that Astley was a historical manor, that Adam Mort purchased the Manor of Astley in 1606, and that Dam House and its associated grounds formed the historic Astley Estate. It also places Astley within the larger historical township of Tyldesley.
- National Archives Discovery: DDK 1548/12, rental with other manors, 1509-1547: https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/N14271908 — Contemporary archival lead for the manor's rental history, held by Lancashire Archives.
- National Archives Discovery: DL 30/79/1031, court roll with other manors, 1513-1515: https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/N14286587 — Contemporary archival lead confirming the manor's court-record presence in the early sixteenth century.
Warnings / uncertainty:
- No defensible historical polygon was found. Do not use the modern civil parish, Tyldesley urban district, Astley Village Conservation Area, former hospital grounds, or modern estate boundary as the manor boundary.
- The manor house is physically in the historical Tyldesley area even though the manor was Astley Manor; this explains the registry location and avoids conflation with Astley Hall in Chorley.
- The representative point is a documented manor-house location, not the centre or full extent of the historical manorial lands.