Two Wiltshire Manors and their Manorial Buildings

This paper will explore how manorial accounts from the fourteenth century can be used by archaeologists to understand buildings that no longer survive. The long series of accounts of the Wiltshire manors of Longbridge Deverill and Monkton Deverill provide an excellent basis for study. By using documentary sources, rather than archaeological ones, this paper suggests that it is possible to build a picture of the manorial buildings over time, as they change and are rebuilt. It is also possible to understand the wider estate of which the manor is part, and the economics of medieval building maintenance.