The Organisation

Sheldon Manors documents and preserves the manorial history of the south Hampshire coast, Portsdown, and Chichester Harbour. Founded to create a comprehensive, source-based record of every manor in the area: their lords, their obligations, their documents, and their connections.

The coverage area runs roughly from Chichester in the west to Havant in the east, from Portsdown Hill in the north to the Solent coast in the south, taking in the harbour systems that shaped medieval landholding along this stretch of the English Channel.

This coastline is anchored by two Roman sites of national importance. At the western end, Fishbourne Roman Palace: the largest known Roman domestic building north of the Alps, built around 75 AD. At the eastern end, Portchester Castle: the most complete Roman fort in northern Europe, part of the Saxon Shore defences from around 285 AD. The manors documented here sit between these two landmarks, connected by a harbour system, a shared medieval administration, and a thousand years of recorded history.

Principal

Sheldon Manors was established by Morgan Sheldon, a High Court Enforcement Officer, Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Credit Management, and Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, with a longstanding interest in the tenurial history of the south Hampshire coast and Chichester Harbour.

Method

Our research programme works systematically through the published VCH volumes for Hampshire and Sussex, cross-referencing each manorial descent against the Manorial Documents Register, Inquisitions Post Mortem, Feudal Aids, the Valor Ecclesiasticus, and primary records held at the Hampshire and West Sussex record offices.

Every statement on this platform is tied to a documented source. Where the evidence is uncertain, we say so. Where the sources are silent, we stop. This is a research tool, not a collection of assumptions.

Scope

The database currently covers manors in the Portsdown hundred of Hampshire and the Bosham hundred of Sussex, with a particular focus on manors connected to Portchester Castle and Southwick Priory. Coverage will extend progressively to every documented manor in the defined geographic area.

Each manor in the database has a full profile page containing its chain of lords, tenurial obligations, institutional connections, documentary evidence held in record offices, and a complete source bibliography. Downloadable PDF reports can be generated for any manor.