One of Hamo’s two manors in LDB 28.11 is our manor later called Grenvilles: this is on the border with Toppesfield if not partly within that parish.

I accept de Mandeville’s manor to be that of Moone Hall in the centre of the village though I can see no evidence in LDB or elsewhere to put this beyond doubt.

This makes Hamo’s annexation of Alstan’s land to be the Manor later called Stambourne Hall. It cannot readily be related to his holding in Scoteneys, which is at least a mile away to the East and almost into Gt Yeldham. It does however imply that he would have to abandon one of them to keep the other, as he appears to have done.

Though there is good evidence for their being a fourth part to the village in the LDB. This is the entry titled In Nortuna in the latin text which is translated as Cornish Hall but is almost certainly Ridgewell Norton. It probably was not itself an independent manor in the legal sense; certainly I have found no trace of any court deeds.

This is the basis for hypothesis that Stambourne was, even in 1088, really in five parts, not just three. From at least 1160 onwards there were church lands in the centre of the village; these constituted the fifth part. The Freeman Alstan, or at least one of the other xii, may well have been the antecedent of Tebald de Stanburn who first appears with that surname in Becket’s charter as giving land to the church in or before 1160, some 70 years after LDB. He probably occupied and maintained the central manor of the village on behalf of Hamo, for it is most unlikely that this Norman Lord [or for that matter, de Mandeville] spent any significant time here. The de Stanburns may well have built the first medieval hallhouse, though clearly not the present Elizabethan structure.

When Henry III gave Stambourne Manor to Paulinus de Pever in 1242, presumably depriving Hamo’s successors, if indeed there were any, it is probable that the de Stanburns simply moved to the lands they had retained in the southern part of the village whether or no they continued to maintain the Manor House. This family certainly retained land hereabouts until 1483 when all their property was finally sold to Queens College.

Return to Chapter 2 – Early history