Manor of Bowes
Reference: D/MOB Catalogue Title: Manor of Bowes Area: Catalogue Category: Estate and Family Records Description:
Covering Dates: 1660-1987
Catalogue Index
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- Manor of Bowes
Catalogue Description
A considerable quantity of Bowes Manor material overlapping with the present deposit, is to be found in the Hanby Holmes Collection (D/HH 6/ ) and lesser quantities in the Edleston Collection(D/Ed ) and the Watson Collection (D/Wat ), all deposited in this office. A few volumes of Bowes Manor letter books are held by the museum at Beamish.
The structure of the manor with the lordship vested in trustees for the owners of manorial rights, which latter are, loosely, the successors to the former manorial tenants, is probably unique. During the first half of the 19th century it led to a considerable amount of litigation conducted with some virulence and more beneficial to the finance of the lawyers than those of the manor of of its tenants.
Scheme of arrangement
D/MOB 1 Court rolls, minutes of the Lords in Trust, appointments of stewards, bailiffs etc.
D/MOB 2 Deeds to property of the Lords in Trust
D/MOB 3 Papers of the steward
D/MOB 4 Papers relating to inclosure and stinting
D/MOB 5 Papers relating to litigation
D/MOB 6 Miscellaneous
D/MOB 7 Wills, inventories, bonds etc.
Court Rolls
[See also D/HH 6/11/1-208 particularly items 1 and 202 to 208 for further court rolls, presentments, verdicts etc.]
All of items D/MOB 1/1- and D/HH 6/11/203-207 have suffered from prolonged exposure to dampness, as have items in D/MOB 7 below. It may be presumed that all those groups were once stored together and that the separation occurred during the Wheldon-Holmes period of stewardship of the manor and probably towards the end of it. Many items contain endorsed notes of production in Hutchinson, Morritt and Walton v Morritt actions of 1837-1838.
Catalogue Contents
From the physical state of these documents (prolonged exposure to damp) it is clear that they have kept the company of the court rolls etc. similarly afflicted in D/MOB 1 and, from internal evidence, that certain of them were produced in the Manor Court. To have numbered them in sections D/MOB 1 or D/MOB 3 would however have lost the coherence of the group.
Ref: D/MOB 7/1