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The press has reported on several occasions recently the sale of the lordships of various manors
sometimes at hugely inflated prices. The impression has been left by some commentators that this implies some sort of transference of a title. It does nothing of the sort.' A man who buys the lordship of Oversley does not become 'Lord Oversley'. If you buy a lordship, what do you get for your £20, 000 or whatever?
Apart from being the 'lord of the manor' now an honorary title, one gets little or nothing of material worth. Let us take a local example. By the beginning of the 19th century Lord Brooke of Warwick Castle was also lord of the manor of Alcester. By about l810 he sold to the Conway-Seymours of Ragey Hall his considerable lands in Alcester. Then he sold to them his right in the lordship: these were few, though over the centuries they had been of value. Manorial rights dated from the Middle Ages and varied according to manor. Here are some of the things these included: the death of a freeholder or tenant resulted in the payment to the lord of a 'heriot' before the land could pass to the heir; this could be one's best animal or a cash payment. Each manor had it's own customary rules. Also, the lord often possessed rights over the lands of even freeholders: for instance, the right to hunt over them or the right to the trees on his land or the minerals in it. By the 19th cent. the rights of lords of manors had fallen largely into disuse, even over any lands they might still have owned in the manor'. This coincided with the death over much of the country of he manor courts which had enforced the lord's rights
The parchment deed which a person may buy today transfers no land and probably in most cases no manorial rights just the ownership of a position which has long ago been drained of any meaning, except that of a continuity with a mediaeval practice. When the Duke of Westminster sells the lordship of Little Cranford to Mr. Brown for some inflated sum, Mr. Brown takes no title from either Duke or place but he may call himself the lord of the manor of Little Cranford and show his deed over dinner to impress his friends.
It's a pity that the English love their snobbery but an even greater one that the Americans follow us and are willing to pay dollars to prove it.
© Alcester & District Local History Society 1990