Members of the Barnville family are known to have built up a freehold estate in the manor of Oakington, in Harrow, from the 13th century onwards, and William Barnville first appears in August 1381 as a commissioner appointed by the Crown to investigate cases of trespass in two of the archbishop of Canterbury’s parks in that area. In the following year he and his wife, Avice, sold land in the neighbouring manor of Acton to John and Isabel Holmys for the sum of £40. Although described as ‘the elder, of Kent’ in one of the quitclaims drawn up at this time, there can be little doubt that the William Barnville involved in the transaction had but five months before been returned as shire knight for Middlesex.
Sir Baldwin Raddington
†, the controller of the royal household, and John Raddington, to farm land in Taunton, Somerset, at a rent of £10 a year, payable at the Exchequer. He had probably by then inherited his mother’s manor of Kellythorpe, which he settled upon feoffees by two conveyances in June 1388 and May 1389.
Twice, in August 1384 and June 1391, Barnville acted as a mainpernor in Chancery, on the second occasion offering joint sureties of £100 on behalf of a Kingston man. In July 1389 he bound himself in £40 at the Exchequer to guarantee the payment by Westminster abbey of an annual farm for the alien priory of Folkestone; and it is possible that he was involved in other of the abbey’s business.