"The Mannor house and outhouses Barnes and Stables to the Number of Thirteen Bays of building One home close and orchards wherein the said Mannor house standeth lying to the town street west betwixt the land of Edward Orton North and the Church lane South containing by estemacion about 1 acre 2 roods"

So here we have it; Jane Barrodale's elder daughter occupying the family home and the evidence that Manor Farm still standing at the corner of Church Lane and Main Street was indeed the Manor House: and that when the present owner changed the name back to 'Manor House' a few years ago he was restoring its rightful identity.

Manor courts were necessary to regulate husbandry and other aspects of the life of a village and a number were held in Swannington up to 1741 These Courts Leet and Courts Baron were held at the Manor House and the book recording them sets out the rules that villagers had to observe and the penalties paid by those who broke them. Examples from the court of 1724 show the variety of infringements dealt with. Fourteen of the suitors were each fined 2d for encroaching on the common. William Sharpe for killing unlawful meat and John Gregory for bread that was not the correct weight were each fined 4d but Joseph Walker had to pay 6d for 'keeping his swine unrung'.

In the middle of the nineteenth century, with the affairs of Wyggeston Hospital in some disarray, the Huntingdon and Hastings families were laying unconvincing claim to the Lordship of the Manor of Swannington and particularly to the mineral rights.. Although no Court Leet had been held for more than a hundred years the Hospital decided to revive the institution as a way of asserting and advertising its undoubted claim to the lordship. All free suitors were summoned to a court to be held in the Manor House in 1860. These revived Courts continued every few years until 1925 serving less and less any serious purpose but providing the pageantry and playacting in which the Victorians and their immediate successors took such delight. They also provided a welcome opportunity for a social meal. In 1863 it was a plain and substantial meal at the Bulls Head but when the last Court was held in 1925 all those present adjourned in motors to the Fox and Goose at Coalville.

Another traditional ceremony took place at the Manor House and that was the rent dinner. Few of the tenants would have bank accounts and most small financial transactions would be carried out by handing over cash. The tenants would attend on the Hospital's agent and pay the amount due and then would be entertained to a meal. Descriptions of this in the eighteenth century are to be found in Parson Woodforde's Diary and at Calke there is a great rent table in which the agent could stash the money away safely as it came in.

James Richards grew up in Swannington and he and his wife farmed at the Manor. He described it sixty years ago explaining how at one time it was three cottages, but in his last years there it had about twenty rooms. Mrs. Richards added that it had a massive kitchen, so large was this and the adjoining two rooms that it was an easy matter to place 27 tables for the old Infirmary whist-drives. It would seem that this kitchen was the social centre of the village before the Institute was built. Twice a year Mrs. Richards provided a rent dinner where a convivial company would be presided over by the Hospital's agent. The June meal was only a cold collation, but the January dinner had an elaborate menu. Mr. and Mrs. Richards gave up farming in 1927 and that was the end of these functions as well as of the holding of the Courts Leet.

In 1986 the County Council decided on a scheme of 'road improvement' and the farm buildings adjacent to the main road were demolished. By this means the speed of vehicles passing through the village was increased and a perceived accident blackspot was transformed into a realised accident blackspot at the next bend 100 yards down the road. The Manor House is now sheltered by high walls with wrought iron gates, an attractive new bungalow and a substantial family house, still building, where the barns and dairies once stood.

Reproduction of the signature of Thomas Barrodale and of the heading of the Terrier is by permission of Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland Record Office.


	Articles Posted June 17th 2003
	SWANNINGTON MANOR HOUSE This is the first, and longest as befits its status, of an occasional series of articles on Swannington properties. The views expressed and assertions made are those of the author and not necessarily those of the Trust. In the centre of Swannington stands a group of buildings which were the homes of some of our more important villagers 300 years ago. On elevated ground stands the Stone House, tall and imposing, with walls of coursed square rubble and chamfered stone mullion windows, it overtops its neighbours. Well back and at a lower level on the other side of the road is what for many years was known as Manor Farm which hides its age behind modern extensions and cream paint. Each of these buildings had some claim to being the authentic Manor House. Early maps showed both buildings but do not name either of them so one must seek the answer amongst the public records. One of the earliest of these documents is a lease of the Manor House, dated 1609, to Thomas Barrodale. This family remained in the village to the end of the century through the siege and destruction of Ashby Castle and through the growth of a strong Quaker movement in Swannington itself. By the early years of the Restoration (1660) another Thomas was head of the family, living in the Manor House with his wife, Jane. As we try to find out what the family were like and something of their way of life we have to work on such small clues as the tax they paid. In Swannington terms they were well to do and Thomas was the only person in the village to be described as "Gentleman". After the Restoration money was collected throughout the land for a "Free and Voluntary Present" to Charles II. Only six people in Swannington contributed and of the village total of £1.4s.6d. Thomas Barrodale gave £1. Charles II had to find a means of raising a regular substantial income to run the country and the Hearth Tax was introduced; a very unpopular tax but, to present day researchers, particularly useful since so many of the records survive. The majority of homes would have only one hearth but the Manor House in common with several others in the village had four. Inventories, compiled on the death of both Thomas and Jane, survive and in these is a tantalising glimpse of their way of life. From the description in these inventories we can imagine the main room, a combined kitchen and sitting room and itself known as the house, with its display of brass and pewter, its copper warming pan, and bacon flitches on the wall. The bedrooms were identified by the colours of their hangings, the red room, the yellow room and the green chamber. Special possessions included a clock which Jane left to her eldest son Thomas, and a tapestry coverlet that had been her father's. There were too the powdering tub for salting meat, the cheese press and the brewing implements of every well organised household. Although Thomas was an attorney, he was also a farmer in a small way. There were wheat, barley and peas growing in the fields and when Jane died she had four cows and two calves, 15 sheep and two pigs, but surprisingly neither she nor her husband had any horses. Edward Muggleston who lived near by and died in the same decade as Jane had 115 sheep, beasts old and young and horses old and young and a much more considerable acreage of corn, wheat and oats. Jane's goods were valued at £34 and Edward Muggleston's at ten times as much. This was not because Jane was a widow, a comparison of her inventory and that of her husband shows that she had taken over all his household and farming possessions. Of course these inventories did not include freehold land and buildings and often neglected cash and negotiable instruments, so they give an idea of a way of life rather than of wealth. Unlike her husband Jane left a will and we can compare his strong educated hand with her simple mark. It is strange to think that she, the wife of an attorney and man of some substance, was illiterate. It is almost impossible nowadays to imagine the way that women were regarded in the seventeenth century. Jane left the residue of her goods to her two daughters Elizabeth and Sarah but stipulated "when they shall dispose of themselves in marriage" they should take the advice of their brother Thomas and "loving kinsmen" Thomas and Richard Allsopp. This then was the family living in the Manor House throughout the seventeenth century, but they seem to have left soon after Jane's death for by 1714 it was in the occupation of a later Edward Muggleston. Among the collection of documents at Leicestershire Record Office (before the county became a doughnut and the record office assumed a title so convoluted as to satisfy even the most grandiloquent Ruritanian aristocrat) is a Terrier of the Lordship of Swannington of 1697, a 13 foot long narrow and fragile, parchment roll. This is the heading: There follows a list of all the occupants of Wyggeston Hospital land with descriptions of their houses and their fields with all the old field names, most of which are still used today, and giving the positions of the strips which they had in the three common fields, Windmill Field, Middle Field and Hough Field. First of all, as was its due, came the description of the Manor House in the occupation of Mrs. Elizabeth Barrodale. BACK TO TOP \| HOMEPAGE		"The Mannor house and outhouses Barnes and Stables to the Number of Thirteen Bays of building One home close and orchards wherein the said Mannor house standeth lying to the town street west betwixt the land of Edward Orton North and the Church lane South containing by estemacion about 1 acre 2 roods" So here we have it; Jane Barrodale's elder daughter occupying the family home and the evidence that Manor Farm still standing at the corner of Church Lane and Main Street was indeed the Manor House: and that when the present owner changed the name back to 'Manor House' a few years ago he was restoring its rightful identity. Manor courts were necessary to regulate husbandry and other aspects of the life of a village and a number were held in Swannington up to 1741 These Courts Leet and Courts Baron were held at the Manor House and the book recording them sets out the rules that villagers had to observe and the penalties paid by those who broke them. Examples from the court of 1724 show the variety of infringements dealt with. Fourteen of the suitors were each fined 2d for encroaching on the common. William Sharpe for killing unlawful meat and John Gregory for bread that was not the correct weight were each fined 4d but Joseph Walker had to pay 6d for 'keeping his swine unrung'. In the middle of the nineteenth century, with the affairs of Wyggeston Hospital in some disarray, the Huntingdon and Hastings families were laying unconvincing claim to the Lordship of the Manor of Swannington and particularly to the mineral rights.. Although no Court Leet had been held for more than a hundred years the Hospital decided to revive the institution as a way of asserting and advertising its undoubted claim to the lordship. All free suitors were summoned to a court to be held in the Manor House in 1860. These revived Courts continued every few years until 1925 serving less and less any serious purpose but providing the pageantry and playacting in which the Victorians and their immediate successors took such delight. They also provided a welcome opportunity for a social meal. In 1863 it was a plain and substantial meal at the Bulls Head but when the last Court was held in 1925 all those present adjourned in motors to the Fox and Goose at Coalville. Another traditional ceremony took place at the Manor House and that was the rent dinner. Few of the tenants would have bank accounts and most small financial transactions would be carried out by handing over cash. The tenants would attend on the Hospital's agent and pay the amount due and then would be entertained to a meal. Descriptions of this in the eighteenth century are to be found in Parson Woodforde's Diary and at Calke there is a great rent table in which the agent could stash the money away safely as it came in. James Richards grew up in Swannington and he and his wife farmed at the Manor. He described it sixty years ago explaining how at one time it was three cottages, but in his last years there it had about twenty rooms. Mrs. Richards added that it had a massive kitchen, so large was this and the adjoining two rooms that it was an easy matter to place 27 tables for the old Infirmary whist-drives. It would seem that this kitchen was the social centre of the village before the Institute was built. Twice a year Mrs. Richards provided a rent dinner where a convivial company would be presided over by the Hospital's agent. The June meal was only a cold collation, but the January dinner had an elaborate menu. Mr. and Mrs. Richards gave up farming in 1927 and that was the end of these functions as well as of the holding of the Courts Leet. In 1986 the County Council decided on a scheme of 'road improvement' and the farm buildings adjacent to the main road were demolished. By this means the speed of vehicles passing through the village was increased and a perceived accident blackspot was transformed into a realised accident blackspot at the next bend 100 yards down the road. The Manor House is now sheltered by high walls with wrought iron gates, an attractive new bungalow and a substantial family house, still building, where the barns and dairies once stood. Reproduction of the signature of Thomas Barrodale and of the heading of the Terrier is by permission of Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland Record Office.