Westcourt Manor is one of three manor house

Manor house

A manor house is a country house that historically formed the administrative centre of a manor, the lowest unit of territorial organisation in the feudal system in Europe. The term is applied to country houses that belonged to the gentry and other grand stately homes...

s, along with Woolverton

Woolverton Manor

Westcourt Manor is one of three manor houses, along with Northcourt Manor and Westcourt Manor, just outside of Shorwell, on the Isle of Wight, England....

 and Northcourt

Northcourt Manor

Northcourt Manor is one of three manor houses, along with Woolverton and Westcourt, that is located in Shorwell, on the Isle of Wight, England. It was begun by Sir John Leigh, Deputy Governor of the Island, in 1615, but was unfinished at his death...

, that is located in Shorwell

Shorwell

Shorwell is a village and civil parish on the Isle of Wight, United Kingdom. It is located six kilometres from Newport in the southwest of the island. Shorwell was one of Queen Victoria's favourite places to visit on the Isle of Wight.-History:...

, on the Isle of Wight

Isle of Wight

The Isle of Wight is a county and the largest island of England, located in the English Channel, on average about 2–4 miles off the south coast of the county of Hampshire, separated from the mainland by a strait called the Solent...

, England. According to the Domesday Book

Domesday Book

Domesday Book , now held at The National Archives, Kew, Richmond upon Thames in South West London, is the record of the great survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086...

, it was part of the possessions of Gozehne Fitz Azor, and had been held in the time of the Edward the Confessor

Edward the Confessor

Edward the Confessor also known as St. Edward the Confessor , son of Æthelred the Unready and Emma of Normandy, was one of the last Anglo-Saxon kings of England and is usually regarded as the last king of the House of Wessex, ruling from 1042 to 1066....

by Ulnod in abeyance. At the time of the countess Isabella's record, we find that Sir John Lisle had this manor, with many others, which he held of her in capite, or by knight's service. It was possessed by Colonel Hill. An Elizabethan manor, it is connected to a farm of 200 acres.

Early history

South Shorwell, or West Court, is thus described in Domesday Book:—"Isd. Goz. ten. Sorewelle. Uluod. tenuit in paragio: Tc. p. ii hid. et uno v. modo p. dim.hida. Tra. e. ii car. et. dim. In dno. e. una car. et ii vill. et vi bord. cu. una car. et dim. ibi iii servi et molin. de xl den. et xiiii ac. pti. T.RE. et post, valt c sol. modo iiii lib." (Gozelin, son of Azor, holds Shorwell. Ulnod holds it in abeyance. Then, it was assessed at two hides and one virgate; now only at half a hide. In the demesne there is one carucate, with two villeins, and 6 borderers, with two carucates aud a half. There are 3 slaves, and a mill at 40 denarii, and 14 acres of meadow land. King Edward held it, and afterwards it was valued at 100 shillings: now only at 4 pounds.) It remained in the De Insula or Lisle family, who once possessed such wide domains, for several centuries, and afterwards passed—like the parishes of Bonchurch and Shanklin —through the families of Dennis, Broad, and Alcorn, into that of Popham. The old manor-house is a very picturesque object from the road, being richly adorned with ivy up to its gabled roof.