The Bartons had lived in this area for quite a long time before John de Barton became lord of Whenby. There are records of land transactions in which they were involved at each of the villages: Steresby, Ampleforth, Oswaldkirk, Fryton, Holthorpe, Grimston, Butterwick, Scackleton, and Whenby. Grimston and Holthorpe no longer exist, and Fryton is only a cross roads. All the rest have survived to the twenty-first century. They remain tiny villages just above York in the North Riding.

The first transaction was 1208, and involved a suit concerning Butterwick. William de Barton sued claiming that his wife should have inherited land there. They did not win the suit and that is the only transaction recorded for Butterwick. His land was in Steresby, which is now called Stearsby, where he was lord of the manor. On the basis of this land he was a knight, and actively involved in the work of the realm.

The transactions in the thirteenth century cover a number of villages: Grimston, Oswaldkirk, Ampleforth, and Fryton as well as Butterwick.The varying colors in the table reflect the geographic variety of the transactions.

In 1210 William de Barton, presumably the same man who had sued in Butterwick, was the under-tenant in Grimston. He held his land from Geoffrey de Etton who agreed to Barton transferring land to the Dean and Chapter of York. Establishing religious houses was a growth industry in the twelfth and first half of the thirteenth century. Religious houses were being established with land grants from everyone who held land -- from the King to an under-tenant in Grimsby. At the end of the century Geoffrey, John, and William -- all de Bartons -- exchanged land with each other and retrieved land from the Prior of Malton. There is only one other record of a transaction involving Grimston, but the land remained with the de Barton family and was the land they left when they settled at the manor at Whenby in 1410.

William de Barton, very busy with land holdings at the beginning of the thirteenth century, married Emma Surdeval. Emma and Maud Surdeval had a brother Roger who would have been the heir, but Roger died before their father did. That left Emma and Maud as co-heirs. Maud and her husband got most of the family land in Ampleforth and Emma and William got most of the land in Oswaldkirk. In 1227 the two families settled an arrangement for some land in Ampleforth. Nicholas de Barton succeeded his father William. The son of Nicholas, also named Nicholas, succeeded his father. His heir was his only daughter. She married Richard de Pickering before 1316, and the land became de Pickering land.

Most of the transactions during the fourteenth century involved Fryton. John de Barton, an earlier generation than the John who would become lord of Whenby, held 3 carucates of land as early as 1284. Over the next thirty years he bought out the other families holding land in Fryton; he became sole lord of Fryton. In 1300 he was granted free warren for his land in Fryton and Holthorp. Both were in the Hovingham parish, which was right in the middle of the Barton neighborhood. He sold the land in Holthorp in 1328.

At almost the same time there was another John de Barton living in the Barton neighborhood and actively involved in public affairs. He was John de Barton of Oswaldkirk. There is no information about his acquisition of the land, but he was lord of the manor and a knight.

John de Barton of Fryton had a son, Adam, who inherited the manor in Fryton. Then later in the century, 1367, William made a settlement for the land. Ralph was living there in 1397. The land in Fryton must have then passed to John de Barton because his daughter, Margery, had the land as a dowery when she married Ralph Ashton.

The transactions do not fill in the complete family line. There are gaps in the pedigree, but it is clear that the de Barton family held the land from late in the thirteenth century to the middle of the fifteenth century.

Whenby: in 1332 John Moryn became lord of the manor. His son, also named John, inherited the land. This John did not have a male heir, and the land passed to his two daughters. Alice married John Newland and Isabel married Thomas de Barton. The land at Whenby went to Alice and John Newland. The Newland's son William inherited the land. However, he died without son or daughter. The line of inheritance went back to the daughters of John Moryn, to Alice his other daughter, and then to John de Barton her son. The de Bartons would hold the land for a number of generations: John, Conan, Richard, Christopher, and John. Five generations of de Bartons were lord of Whenby in the fifteenth century. The de Bartons continued to hold the land, and parted with it only at the end of the sixteenth century.

Whenby is a small English village in one of the agricultural regions of Yorkshire. Today the population is about 100. When John inherited the manor in 1410 it was likely in the same range. The aerial photograph shows the fields of Whenby today. The road map also suggests only a few houses, a church, and a public telephone.

For more than 300 years -- 1200 through 1500+ -- this was the de Barton neighborhood. An extended family -- fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, cousins, aunts and uncles -- moved between towns. William was the founder, as far as can be found in the records, and he was a particularly busy founder between land trades and marriages and land holdings in several of the villages. In 1410 John inherited the manor of Whenby, and Whenby became the focal point for the family as other land holdings were let go.

It is a small village out in the middle of the North Riding. Lord of the manor made one a distinguished local person. It also seems to have been enough to lift one into the mainstream of governing England.