Kempton appears on the Middlesex Domesday Map as "Chenetone" a soon-after variant of which was "Chennestone" (the "k" sound rendered with "ch" and n's proceeded with an "e" due to the early Middle English orthography used by those scribes) later written, alongside data proving a period of regal use, as "Kenyngton". The period of the last's writing was a source of ambiguity as it coincided with common forms of writing Kennington in Surrey. A wooded demesne at heart — the first Kempton Park was inclosed by royal licence in 1246. Its farmed-out outland smallholdings were for much of its history a considerably smaller manor than that of Sunbury, in which parish the whole estate is. Most of the ward of Sunbury East was in medieval times part of Kempton, as was the land of the Stain Hill Reservoirs and Kempton Park Reservoirs. No trace can be found of the chief tenant enjoying more than permissive, informal rights such as his tenants sharing in pasture on the common in the north of the parish of Sunbury, in which parish the manor lay.