Parish of Bosham, Chichester, West Sussex
The Manor of Old Fishbourne is an English manorial lordship in the Parish of Bosham, near Chichester in West Sussex. It has been documented since the Domesday survey of 1086. The lordship is an incorporeal hereditament: a form of intangible property recognised in English law, distinct from the land itself and from any buildings upon it.
A manor in the English legal sense is not a house. It is a unit of feudal administration, typically comprising a defined area of land, the rights attached to it, and the lordship over it. The lordship may be separated from the land and held independently, as it is here. Manorial lordships are registrable at HM Land Registry and may be conveyed by deed.
Old Fishbourne was carved from the great Manor of Bosham in 1086. Bosham was one of the wealthiest estates in Domesday Sussex and the only one that William the Conqueror retained personally. A man named Engeler held two hides at Fishbourne, land given to him by the Conqueror himself. A twelfth-century charter confirms the identification: Turstin, son of Engeler, granted to Southwick Priory "all my lands of Fisseborn, namely that which King William gave to my father Engeler."
The land at Old Fishbourne was occupied long before any manor existed. A Roman palace, the largest known residential building north of the Alps, was constructed in nearby fields around 75 to 80 AD, probably for the client king Tiberius Claudius Cogidubnus. It was destroyed by fire around 270 AD. Before the Norman Conquest, the surrounding land belonged to the Godwin family: Earl Godwin of Wessex held Bosham as his seat, and his son Harold, the last Anglo-Saxon king, sailed from Bosham to Normandy in 1064.
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| c. 75-80 AD | Fishbourne Roman Palace constructed in nearby fields, probably for the client king Cogidubnus. |
| c. 270 AD | Palace destroyed by fire. |
| 1066 | Norman Conquest. William the Conqueror retains the Manor of Bosham as sole Sussex demesne estate. |
| 1086 | Domesday Book. Engeler holds 2 hides at Fishbourne from the Manor of Bosham, under Earl Roger de Montgomery. Land given to Engeler by William the Conqueror. |
| c. 1120s | Turstin, son of Engeler, grants all his Fishbourne lands to the Prior and canons of Southwick Priory, Hampshire. |
| c. 1128 | Southwick Priory founded at Portchester Castle before relocating to Southwick c. 1150. Augustinian house. |
| 1280 | Inquiry confirms Southwick Priory holds at Fishbourne a messuage and 2 hides, valued at ten pounds yearly, by gift of Turstin. |
| 1296 | Old Fishbourne recorded in the Subsidy Roll for the Hundred of Bosham. |
| 1320 | Grant of free warren in demesne lands at Fishbourne recorded to Southwick Priory. |
| 1538 | Southwick Priory surrendered during the Dissolution of the Monasteries. |
| 1540 | Anne of Cleves granted "the manor" of Old Fishbourne as part of her annulment settlement from Henry VIII. First recorded use of the word "manor" for this holding. |
| 1557 | Anne of Cleves dies. She is the only one of Henry VIII's six wives buried in Westminster Abbey. |
The Victoria County History of Sussex, published in 1953, records that the subsequent descent of the manor after 1557 has not been traced. This is not unusual for smaller English manors. Many lordships passed through private hands without generating the kind of records that survive in county archives. A manorial lordship does not cease to exist because historians cannot document every transfer; it remains a form of property under English law until formally extinguished.
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 1944 | Eisenhower makes the D-Day decision at Southwick House, built on the site of the priory that held Old Fishbourne for four centuries. |
| 1953 | Victoria County History of Sussex, Vol. IV published. Records the manorial descent of Old Fishbourne. |
| 1960 | Roman remains discovered during water main work in nearby fields. Excavations reveal the palace of Cogidubnus. |
| 1968 | Fishbourne Roman Palace museum opens to the public. |
| 1987 | Old Fishbourne and New Fishbourne parishes unified. |
| 2023 | Morgan Sheldon succeeds to the Manor of Old Fishbourne. |
Primary source: Victoria County History of Sussex, Vol. IV (1953), pp. 182-188.
The lordship of the Manor of Old Fishbourne is held as a private incorporeal hereditament. It does not confer a peerage, does not carry a seat in the House of Lords, and does not grant ownership of any land. It confers the right to the style "Lord of the Manor of Old Fishbourne." The titles "Lord of Old Fishbourne" and "Lady of Old Fishbourne" are registered trademarks with the UK Intellectual Property Office.
The Manor of Old Fishbourne is recorded on Wikidata as entry Q138412244.