The Manor covers the area from the western-side of Borough High Street, Southwark, to the borders of Newington and Lambeth.
[4][5] Today the City officers refer to the three manors as the 'Town and Borough of Southwark', as stated on the Courts Leet summons, on which none of the nicknames appear.
[6] At the time of Domesday Book in 1086 the Southwark and Bermondsey areas were owned by the king and by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the latter's holding was the manor along the eastern side of the high street.
[8] A fascinating early plan-map, discovered in the Duchy of Lancaster archive, shows Southwark at some point between the Dissolution and the 1550 charter.
Perhaps it was prepared with reference to the jurisdictional disputes with the king's agents, the City and its manor of the Guildable, as the boundary points are shown on it.
[9] The first post Domesday fracture of this extensive royal estate is a result of the creation by one Aylwin 'Cild' of a priory at Bermondsey in 1082, but he also assigned rents from properties in the City to a Cluniac house in France, presumably for the purpose of supporting this church.
[10] It has been suggested that the mercantile dynasty of the early mediaeval period called 'Ailwyn' were his descendants and that Henry Fitz-Ailwyn, the first known Mayor of London (ca 1189) was one of these; we know that his daughter in law was interred in the Priory church.
However, one of its earliest forays was into local real estate but it was constrained by the neighbouring manors, including Walworth to the south, held by Canterbury.
However, at the period under scrutiny it was just a small part of the extensive combined area held by the Priory occupying the western side of the high street, which as shown above was already owned by it.
The main open ground, sparsely populated, of the manor was assigned to this church as its outlying parish and hence it acquired the alternative epithet of 'St George's Fields'.
From this large combined area Bermondsey Priory divided a part which was let-out to one Ordgar the Rich; just when is not clear.
As they became more prominent at court they grew wealthier and acquired parts of the western side of the high street from the Abbey to create a large mansion and grounds including, notably, Moulton Close which is now the park around the Imperial War Museum.
Charles Brandon, the last of the male line, became Marshal in 1510 and was created Duke of Suffolk in 1514; he married Henry VIII's sister in 1516.
However, Henry gave this building to Queen Jane Seymour in 1537, mother of Edward VI, who died of post-natal complications shortly after his birth.
In 1538 Henry acquired from Thomas Cranmer the Archbishop of Canterbury's manor on the eastern side of the high street; it seems it was his intention to create a new hunting park out of the two areas and the Brandon mansion was to act as its lodge.
The building then reverted to being a royal mansion; in 1554 Queen Mary I stayed overnight with her new husband King Philip II of Spain as part of their progress to London.