Medieval manor of Purleigh at Purleigh Barns (EHER 45833)

The medieval manor of Purleigh which dates back to the late 14th century where it was originally known as Latchingdon Barns. The suffix 'Barns' may have been derived from the presence of a cattle shed on the site, as described in 1323.

Originally Purleigh Barns was known as Latchingdon Barns, a name first recorded in the late 14th and early 15th centuries and still being used as an alias into the late 16th century. In 1323 the farm was referred to merely as 'a tenement in Purle called Lachingdon in which there is a grange and a cattle shed' -apparently the origin of the later suffix 'Barns'. Both boundary and placename evidence therefore tend to associate Purleigh Barns manor more closely with Latchingdon than with Purleigh. The evidence seems to suggest that Hugh de Montfort's Latchingdon manor of 1086, which was divided between himself and two subtenants, most probably consisted of the Purleigh Barns 'leg' of Purleigh parish, and the farms of London Hayes and Tile Hall in Latchingdon parish. <1>