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Buckland Abbey is a Grade I listed [1] 700-year-old house in Buckland Monachorum, near Yelverton, Devon, England, noted for its connection with Sir Richard Grenville the Younger and Sir Francis Drake. It is owned by the National Trust.
Buckland Abbey was founded as a Cistercian abbey in 1278 [2] by Amicia, Countess of Devon and was a daughter house of Quarr Abbey, on the Isle of Wight. The abbey of Quarr had close connections with the family, having been founded by Baldwin de Redvers, first Earl of Devon. [3] It has been suggested that Buckfast was founded as a monument to her husband, Baldwin de Redvers (d. 1245) and her son, also Baldwin (d. 1262). [3] Amicia started to make arrangements for the foundation in 1273. [3] It was one of the last Cistercian houses founded in England and also the most westerly. The remains of the church are about 37.6 metres (123 ft) long. The width across the transepts is 28 metres (92 ft). The nave and presbytery are 10.1 metres (33 ft) wide. For its late date, the church was unusually simple, being without aisles. [3] Most of this church survives within the present house - the arches supporting the tower can be seen in the top floor, and one of the transept chapels retains its vault. The monks would have lived in buildings around a cloister to the north of the church. These have disappeared, but the building now called Tower Cottage may have been part of the abbot's house. [3]
The initial endowment was large - as well as the manors of Buckland, Bickleigh and Walkhampton, and the estate at Cullompton, the Exeter diocese episcopal registers show the abbey managed five granges at Buckland plus the home farm at the abbey. In total, this amounted to over 20,000 acres (8097 hectares). [3] A market and fair at Buckland and Cullompton were granted in 1318. In 1337 King Edward III granted the monks a licence to crenellate, allowing them to fortify the abbey.
In the 15th century the monks built a Tithe Barn which is 180 feet (55 m) long and survives to this day. It is Grade I listed [4] Another survival is a building now known as the Guest House, but probably originally 14th or 15th century stabling. [3]
It remained an abbey until the Dissolution of the Monasteries by King Henry VIII. At this time the revenues were placed at £241 17s. 9d. per annum [5] (equivalent to £205,100in 2023). [6] This put it among the larger houses that survived the first wave of closures. At the eventual suppression in 1539, Abbot John Toker was given a yearly pension of £60 (equivalent to £50,900in 2023), [6] and the remaining twelve monks shared £54 10s. 6d.
In 1541 Henry sold Buckland to Sir Richard Grenville the Elder (Sewer of the Chamber to Henry VIII, poet, soldier, last Earl Marshal of Calais) who, working with his son Sir Roger Grenville (Gentleman of the Privy Chamber of Henry VIII, captain of the ill-fated Mary Rose ), began to convert the abbey into a residence, renaming it Buckland Greynvile or Grenville. Sir Roger died in 1545 when the Mary Rose heeled over in a sudden squall while the English fleet was engaged with the French fleet in the English Channel off Portsmouth. He left a son aged 3, also named Richard Grenville, who completed the conversion in 1575–76.
After being owned by the family for 40 years, Buckland Greynvile was sold by Sir Richard the younger to two intermediaries in 1581, who unknown to Grenville, were working for Drake, whom he despised. By this point its value had increased to £3400. [3]
The abbey is unusual in that the church was retained as the principal component of the new house whilst most of the remainder was demolished, which was a reversal of the normal outcome with this type of redevelopment. The main external changes were the demolition of the transepts, to let light into a central hall under the tower, and the addition of a new service wing on the south side. [3]
Drake lived in the house for 15 years, as did many of his collateral descendants. In 1796-1801 major alterations were made, and further work was done after a fire in 1915. [3] In the early 20th century the abbey was inhabited by the Dowager Lady Seaton, born Elisabeth Fuller-Elliot-Drake, who died on 9 May 1937. [8] The next year, another fire devastated the house. [3] Lady Seaton left a life interest to Captain Richard Owen Tapps Gervis Meyrick. [9] In 1946 he sold it to Captain Arthur Rodd, [10] who presented the property to the National Trust in 1947. [11]
Following a restoration between 1948 and 1951 which cost around £20,000 (equivalent to £790,000in 2023), [6] largely funded by the Pilgrim Trust [12] the property has been open to the public since 1951 and is operated by the National Trust with the assistance of Plymouth City Council — the Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery use the building to house part of their collection. The collection is noted for the presence of "Drake's Drum". A number of independent craft workshops are located in the converted ox sheds. The Cider House garden includes both a wild garden and a kitchen garden. There is also a medieval Great Barn next to the house. [13]
In March 2013 the portrait of a man wearing a white feathered bonnet was re-attributed to Rembrandt by the Rembrandt expert Ernst van de Wetering. In June 2014, after eight months of work at the Hamilton Kerr Institute, the painting's authenticity was confirmed and its value estimated at £30m. [14]
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The National Trust Costume Group operate at Buckland Abbey, creating authentic Elizabethan costumes using traditional materials and methods. There is a complete Francis Drake costume, based on the famous portrait of Drake in the National Gallery, and the group are currently working on a costume for Lady Drake, also based on a portrait. [15]
Sir Richard Grenville, also spelt Greynvile, Greeneville, and Greenfield, was an English privateer and explorer. Grenville was lord of the manors of Stowe, Cornwall and Bideford, Devon. He subsequently participated in the plantations of Ireland specifically the Munster plantations, the English colonisation of the Americas and the repulse of the Spanish Armada.
General George Augustus Eliott, 1st Baron Heathfield, was a Scottish officer of the British Army, who served in three major wars during the 18th century. He rose to distinction during the Seven Years' War when he fought in Germany and participated in the British attacks on Belle Île (France) and Cuba. Eliott is most notable for his command of the Gibraltar garrison during the Great Siege of Gibraltar, which lasted from 1779 to 1783, during the American War of Independence. He was celebrated for his successful defence of the fortress and decisive defeat of Spanish and French attackers.
Bordesley Abbey was a 12th-century Cistercian abbey near the town of Redditch, in Worcestershire, England.
Quarr Abbey is a monastery between the villages of Binstead and Fishbourne on the Isle of Wight in southern England. The name is pronounced as "Kwor". It belongs to the Catholic Order of St Benedict.
Drake's Drum is a snare drum that Sir Francis Drake took with him when he circumnavigated the world. Shortly before he died he ordered the drum to be taken to Buckland Abbey and vowed that if England were ever in danger and someone was to beat the drum he would return to defend the country. According to legend it can be heard to beat at times when England is at war or significant national events take place.
Great Coxwell Barn is a Medieval tithe barn at Great Coxwell, Oxfordshire, England. It is on the northern edge of the village of Great Coxwell, which is about 9 miles (14 km) northeast of Swindon in neighbouring Wiltshire.
Meavy is a small village, civil parish and former manor in the English county of Devon. Meavy forms part of the district of West Devon. It lies a mile or so east of Yelverton. The River Meavy runs near the village. For administrative purposes the parish is grouped with the parishes of Sheepstor and Walkhampton to form Burrator Parish Council, and for electoral purposes it is grouped with the same two parishes to form Burrator Ward.
Coggeshall Abbey, situated south of the town of Coggeshall in Essex, was founded in 1140 by King Stephen of England and Matilda of Boulogne, as a Savigniac house but became Cistercian in 1147 upon the absorption of the order.
Werrington is a civil parish and former manor now in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. Prior to boundary changes it straddled the Tamar and lay within the county of Devon. The portion on the west side was transferred to Cornwall by the abolition of Broadwoodwidger Rural District by the Local Government Commission for England in 1966. It is situated 1 mile (1.6 km) to the west of the Tamar, the traditional boundary between Devon and Cornwall, and 1 mile (1.6 km) north of Launceston.
There have been four baronetcies created for people with the surname Drake, three in the Baronetage of England and one in the Baronetage of Great Britain.
Sir Henry Pollexfen of Nutwell in the parish of Woodbury, Devon, was Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas.
Dunster Priory was established as a Benedictine monastery around 1100 in Dunster, Somerset, England.
The Fuller-Eliott-Drake Baronetcy, of Nutwell Court, Buckland Abbey, or Monachorum, Sherford, and Yarcombe in the County of Devon, was a title in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom. It was created on 22 August 1821 for the soldier Thomas Fuller-Eliott-Drake, with remainder in default of male issue of his own to his next two younger brothers, William Stephen Fuller and Rose Henry Fuller, and their male issue. Born Thomas Fuller, he was a grandson of George Augustus Eliott, 1st Baron Heathfield, and grand-nephew of the last Drake Baronet of Buckland, and adopted the additional surnames of Eliott and Drake upon his inheritance of Buckland Abbey and Nutwell Court from the second Lord Heathfield in 1813. He was succeeded according to the special remainder by his nephew, the second Baronet, a son of the younger of his two brothers, who had also adopted the additional surnames. The title became extinct upon his death without a male heir in 1916. The second Baronet's only child married the third Baron Seaton, who also adopted the Eliott and Drake surnames.
Sawtry Abbey was a Cistercian abbey located between Sawtry and Woodwalton in Cambridgeshire, England. The abbey was founded in 1147 by Simon II de Senlis, Earl of Northampton, who was the grandson of Earl Waltheof and Judith, the niece of William the Conqueror who held the manor when the Domesday Survey was compiled. It is the only Cistercian abbey in the county.
Sir Francis Drake, 3rd Baronet (1642–1718), of Buckland Abbey in the parish of Buckland Monachorum and of Meavy, both in Devon, England, was elected seven times as a Member of Parliament for Tavistock in Devon, in 1673, 1679, 1681, 1689, 1690, 1696 and 1698.
Self-portrait wearing a white feathered bonnet is an oil painting attributed to the Dutch painter Rembrandt. It is signed and dated 1635. It was traditionally regarded as a Rembrandt self-portrait until 1968, when it was rejected on stylistic grounds in the Rembrandt catalogue raisonné by Horst Gerson. In 2013, art historian Ernst van de Wetering re-attributed the painting as an original Rembrandt. It is one of over 40 painted self-portraits by Rembrandt.
Ash in the parish of Musbury in the county of Devon is an historic estate, long the residence of the ancient Drake family, the heir of which remarkably was always called John, only one excepted, for ten generations. It was formerly believed to have been the birthplace of John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough (1650–1722), whose mother was Elizabeth Drake, but was in fact probably in ruins at the time of his birth. The future Duke was however baptised in 1650 in the Chapel at Ash, which had been licensed by the Bishop of Exeter in 1387. Ash was "burnt and demolished" during the Civil War and "lay long in ruins" during which time the family moved one mile away to Trill, Axminster. John Drake (1625–1669), the wartime occupant who had suffered so greatly for the Royalist cause received some recompense at the end of the troubles by being created a baronet by King Charles II on the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660. Ash was rebuilt "to a greater perfection than it was of before" by Sir John Drake, 2nd Baronet (1647–1684). The last in the male line was Sir William Drake, 6th Baronet, who died without children and bequeathed all his estates to his widow Anne Williams, who remarried to George Speke, MP, and had by him a daughter Anne Speke, who brought the Drake estates, including Ash and the advowson of Musbury, to her husband Frederick North, 2nd Earl of Guilford (1732–1792), who sold them piece-meal to various persons. Ash House survives today as a grade II* listed private residence in much the same form as depicted by Swete in 1795.
Orleigh is a historic manor in the parish of Buckland Brewer, situated 4 miles to the south west of Bideford, North Devon, England. The manor house is known as Orleigh Court.
Sherford is a village and former civil parish and manor, now in the parish of Frogmore and Sherford, in the South Hams district, in the county of Devon, England. It is situated about 2+1⁄2 miles (4 km) east of the town of Kingsbridge. It should not be confused with the new town Sherford to be built on the outskirts of Plymouth, about 18 miles (29 km) to the north-west. The parish church is dedicated to Saint Martin of Tours. In 1961 the parish had a population of 258. On 1 April 1986 the parish was abolished and merged with parts of South Pool and Charleton to form "Frogmore and Sherford". Sherford was recorded in the Domesday Book as Sireford/Sirefort/Sireforda.
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