Records of the Manor of Newington Barrow, Islington. The collection consists of 20 manor court rolls, 2 duplicate court rolls, and a manor survey. The court rolls document the proceedings of courts both baron and leet. Until 1560 these were held on separate occasions, courts baron more frequently than courts leet. The latter were held approximately once a year, on 3 May. From 1560 both courts were conducted on the same occasion. The proceedings of courts both leet and baron are recorded on the same roll, in date order, throughout. The rolls are predominantly of parchment.
Tenure of the manor from 1877 is untraceable, and the immediate provenance of the rolls is unknown. The presence of annotations on tags attached to certain entries indicates however that the rolls were retained and referred to long after they were created. Most of the rolls include lists of courts held, either on their wrappers or on membranes added to the existing rolls. The labelling of each roll with alphabetical letters also implies they were arranged at a later date so as to be accessible for frequent reference. Gaps in this alphabetical sequence, and in date order, suggest the collection is incomplete. Envelopes postmarked Nov. 1852 and addressed to M G Taylor, Solicitor, 40 Regents Square, London, are attached as markers to rolls dating from 1602, indicating that the collection was at one time in the custody of a solicitor.
Notes on the wrappers indicate that most of the rolls created before 1634 were examined in Chancery by James Symes and Robert Heyhoe, acting on the behalf of Thomas Austen, who was then the defendant in a suit brought by Dame Margaret Hungerford. The nature of the dispute is unknown, but Dame Margaret was the daughter of William Halliday, owner of the Mildmay Estate. This estate, which Margaret inherited in 1645, originated in a copyhold of the Manor of Newington Barrow, and it seems likely therefore that the dispute concerned land tenure.
