Place Name
Originally Mount Pleasant, changed during one of the regular clean ups of London’s street names to avoid confusion with another Mount Pleasant just over a mile away. Like so many big landowners of the medieval period, first and surnames have been passed down the ages from father to son, which combined with sketchy records, created such a tangled mess it can be difficult to establish where one’s ownership ends and another begins. The name originates from the Berners family, originally from Bernières in Calvados in France. The family were late-comers to the Norman Conquest, in 1067 Baron Hugh de Berniers came over from Normandy with the brother of William the Conqueror. The family were given lands in London, Suffolk, Surrey, Middlesex and Essex by the King). When Sir Hugh died, his son Ralph came from Normandy as a young man to take up his rights. Among the lands given either to Sir Hugh or his son were five hides of land in the locality of Islington, covering a vast area which reached to Highgate, by the Bishop of London (although the freehold itself remained with the church). Thereafter various Ralphs and Williams de Berners held this and other lands throughout the 12th and 13th centuries, there was a reference to the family in the area as villa de Iseldon (Islington) Berners in the 1274 Assize Rolls. By 1406 the manor was referred to as Bernersbury , bury being the Middle English word meaning manor, but by the end of the century (1492) it was recorded as Barnersbury. This change was significant since it showed the anglicisation of the family name, following the execution of Sir James de Berners, more than a century earlier was now established. Sir James was one of those beheaded in 1388 during the Merciless Parliament as one of the detested favourites of Richard II, whose increasingly autocratic rule had upset powerful interests. James’s estates were inherited by his younger brother John who adopted the English spelling of the name, Barnes. By 1543 the area was spelt Barnesbury, but by now the land had changed hands after the last Lord Berners, John, who had been Chancellor of the Exchequer, died in 1532. The manor was then passed to Sir Thomas Fowler.
