Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US/UK Und./police) an area of operations, one’s home base.

1862		Walter Cheadle Journal (1931) 16 Dec. 95: ‘Oh, I’ll go and see your traps when I come back if you like.’ ‘Oh no,’ said he ‘for you’ll find out my walk & be poaching on my manor!’.
1924		S. Scott Human Side of Crook and Convict Life 107: There are straight crooks and crooked crooks on the ‘Manor’ of a detective, and he gets to know them apart.
1935		Thieves Slang ms list from District Police Training Centre, Ryton-on-Dunsmore, Warwicks 6: Manor: District.
1936		J. Curtis Gilt Kid 277: ‘Why can’t you do me here?’ ‘Job was done on another manor. You’ve got to be up at their Court.’.
1957		P. Beveridge Inside the C.I.D. 71: ‘I hear you are invading my “manor”, Dodger,’ I said.
1966		B. Reckord Skyvers I ii: The old boy can’t play a bloke who’ll go into decent people’s pavilion’s droppin’ blue lights can he? ’E’d lose the manor.
1972		P. Fordham Inside the Und. 53: ‘Manors’ were carefully allotted and respected.
1981		(con. c.1900s) A. Harding in Samuel East End Und. 116: We didn’t go far out of our manor. Pickpocketing or snatching we would go as far as City Road. Tabernacle Street – City Road, Finsbury up to Broad Street station – Great Eastern Street (keeping to the City side) – that was our manor.
1989		(con. 1950s–60s) in G. Tremlett Little Legs 195: manor the area within which a criminal ‘firm’ operates; the word has now crossed the language barrier and is often used by the police as well to describe their own districts.
1999		J. Cameron Brown Bread in Wengen [ebook] ‘Know the manor. Got a few friends. Got a result before’.
2004		N. ‘Razor’ Smith A Few Kind Words and a Loaded Gun 75: I was getting a reputation as a ‘tool-merchant’, which was no bad thing when every second kid on the manor was secreting a blade somewhere on his person.

2. (UK Und.) one’s local area.

1937		J. Curtis You’re in the Racket, Too 78: If a bogey was to see the two of them together he’d draw a couple of conclusions, particularly as it was right on the other bloke’s manor.
1956		‘Charles Raven’ Und. Nights 24: Every time a job was pulled within Bella’s manor the Law would come and turn her over with a toothcomb.
1962		R. Cook Crust on its Uppers 25: Pressure on him from all over the manor.
1977		S. Berkoff East in Decadence and Other Plays (1985) 47: He doth bestride Commercial Road like a Colossus . . . that’s my manor.
1985		S. Berkoff West in Decadence and Other Plays (1985) 106: To cut all these wars which doth confuse the citizens of our strife-warm manor.
1999		N. Cohn Yes We have No 199: We set forth to parade his manor.
2002		Fitzrovia News Dec. 4: Singer Suggs had mad times on the manor.
2012		(con. 1980s) I. Welsh Skagboys 237: Then, surveying the manor with that bleedin look on his boat, —Hackney: not exactly a great part of town.
2015		www.reddit.com/r/hiphopheads Grime Terminology Guide 🌐 Manor/Bits, – Same as ends.

3. an indeterminate place, used generically.

1962		F. Norman Guntz 15: I have a pretty good guts what with the porridge I have eaten [...] all over the manor.
1995		J. Cameron Vinnie Got Blown Away 23: Turned out he smashed wing mirrors every manor south of Brum.