Clinton Devon Estates is a land management and property development company which manages the Devonshire estates belonging to Baron Clinton, the largest private landowner in Devon, England. Lord Clinton is of the Fane-Trefusis family, and is seated at Heanton Satchville in the parish of Huish, in Devon. The organisation's headquarters are situated on part of the estate at the "Rolle Estate Office" in the Bicton Arena at East Budleigh, near Budleigh Salterton, East Devon.
The estates of Lord Clinton today derive almost entirely from two inheritances, in 1791 and 1842, by the Trefusis family, originally lords of the manor of Trefusis in Cornwall, both from different branches of the Rolle family of Devon: the Rolles of Stevenstone and Bicton (the senior line) and the Rolles of Heanton Satchville, Petrockstowe, a junior branch, also very wealthy. The Devon estates of the Rolle family were founded by the Tudor lawyer George Rolle (d.1552), whose family was of obscure origins in Dorset. He purchased the manor of Stevenstone near Great Torrington as his seat, and during the reign of King Henry VIII and of his son King Edward VI, acquired numerous other properties, many former monastic properties released following the Dissolution of the Monasteries onto the property market by the king at often very favourable terms.
The patriarch George Rolle purchased for his third son, Henry Rolle (d.1620), the marriage of a great heiress Margaret Yeo, daughter and heiress of Robert Yeo of Heanton Satchville, Petrockstowe. At that seat a junior line of the Rolle family lived for many generations, exploiting as their political power-base the pocket borough of Callington in Cornwall, purchased in 1601 by Robert Rolle (died 1633), [1] grandson of George Rolle the Patriarch. This brought a seat and career in Parliament to many members of the Rolle family. The Rolle family of Heanton and its descendants continued until 1791, when the estates were inherited by the Trefusis family, and now form the northern centre of Devon Clinton Estates. This was due to the eventual heir of Margaret Rolle, suo jure 15th Baroness Clinton (1709-1781) having been her cousin Robert George William Trefusis (1764–1797), lord of the manor of Trefusis in Cornwall, who in 1794 successfully claimed the title 17th Baron Clinton. Trefusis and Margaret Rolle were both descended from the marriage of Robert Rolle (c.1622-1660) of Heanton Satchville, Petrockstowe and Lady Arabella Clinton, the younger daughter of Theophilus Clinton, 4th Earl of Lincoln, 12th Baron Clinton (d.1667). A later Trefusis Lord Clinton, having been forced by fire damage to abandon the ancient mansion house of Heanton Satchville in the parish of Petrockstowe, purchased a mansion in the adjoining parish of Huish and renamed the house Heanton Satchville, Huish, still the seat of Lord Clinton today.
The landholdings of the senior line of the Rolle family, seated at Stevenstone, were greatly expanded in the 17th century following the marriage of Sir Henry Rolle (d.1617) to Anne Denys, a daughter and co-heiress of Sir Thomas Denys (1559–1613) of Bicton in East Devon and of Holcombe Burnell on the opposite (western) side of Exeter, which went to the other sister and co-heiress. The Rolle family, even without inheritances by marriage, was extremely acquisitive of land and estates in Devon. Denys Rolle (1725–1797) of Stevenstone and Bicton not only inherited from a second junior branch of the Rolle family the large manor of Chittlehampton in north Devon, together with the manor house of Hudscott, but also himself in 1786 purchased for the huge sum of £72,000 the manors of Otterton and East Budleigh, situated adjacent to Bicton, from the heirs of the Duke family, descendants of Richard Duke (died 1572) who in 1540 had purchased the former lands of Otterton Priory following the Dissolution of the Monasteries. He also acquired an estate in eastern Florida of 20,000 acres of virgin jungle, named Rollestown (on the site of today's San Mateo), in St Mark's in the Bay of Apalatchi, which was not a commercial success, and when following the Treaty of Versailles in 1783, Florida was ceded to the Spanish, it was exchanged by the government for an estate in the Bahama Islands, but at great loss to Rolle. The last in the male line of the senior Rolles was Denys Rolle's son John Rolle, 1st Baron Rolle (d.1842), who inherited the manor of Beer from his first wife Judith Maria Walrond (d.1819), the daughter and heiress of William Walrond of Bovey House, Beer, between Beer (near Seaton) and Branscombe on the south Devon coast, thus near Bicton. Lord Rolle failed to produce progeny by either his first or second wife, and being childless bequeathed his vast estates to Hon. Mark Trefusis (d.1907), second son of the 19th Baron Clinton, the nephew of Louisa Trefusis his second wife and widow, who was required by the will to adopt the surname and arms of Rolle, which he did by royal licence in 1852. Due entirely to the Rolle inheritance he was the largest private landowner in Devon, and according to the Return of Owners of Land, 1873 his landholdings, of which he was life-tenant under his uncle's will, extended to 55,000 acres. In 1907 he too died without male progeny when, in accordance with the entail created by the will of Lord Rolle, the Rolle estates descended to his nephew Charles Trefusis, 21st Baron Clinton (1863–1957) of Heanton Satchville, Huish, who thus united the estates of the three branches of the Rolle family: Rolle of Stevenstone and Bicton, Rolle of Heanton Satchville and Rolle of Hudscott. The 21st Baron Clinton sold Stevenstone in 1922, and the Chittlehampton (Hudscott) estate, including most of the village houses and farms within that large parish, was sold in the 1950s. The Barons Clinton then concentrated the remaining still huge Devon estates in two areas, one in mid-Devon comprising the estates of Rolle of Heanton Satchville, Petrockstowe, the other in east Devon comprising the Bicton, East Budleigh and Beer estates of Rolle of Stevenstone.
In 1957 the Trefusis family died out in the male line on the death of Charles Trefusis, 21st Baron Clinton (1863–1957), whereupon the estates descended to his eldest daughter Hon. Harriet Trefusis (d.1958), the widow of Major Henry Nevile Fane (1883–1947), Coldstream Guards, a descendant in a junior line of the ancient Fane Earls of Westmorland, whose heraldic canting motto Ne Vile Fano ("do not defile the altar") recalls their descent from the even more ancient Neville family, Earls of Warwick.
Major Fane, of Avon Tyrrell in Hampshire, was a son of Sir Edmund Douglas Veitch Fane (1837–1900), third son of Rev. Arthur Fane (1809–1872), of Boyton Manor, near Codford, in Wiltshire, domestic chaplain to his cousin the Earl of Westmorland and Rector of Fulbeck in Norfolk, the 2nd illegitimate son of General Sir Henry Fane (1778–1840), Commander-in-Chief of India, the eldest son of Hon. Henry Fane (d.1802), of Fulbeck Hall, Lincolnshire, a younger son of Thomas Fane, 8th Earl of Westmorland.
Harriet's eldest son Charles Fane had been killed in action in World War II but had left a six-year-old son, Gerard Fane [2] (born 1934, died 2024), who thus became the eventual heir to the Trefusis estates and to the title Baron Clinton, which had fallen into abeyance between the daughters of the 21st Baron. In 1965 the abeyance was terminated in favour of Gerard Fane, [3] who adopted the additional surname Trefusis [2] and became the 22nd Baron Clinton.
On 4 September 1958, shortly after the death of Charles Trefusis, 21st Baron Clinton (1863–1957), almost the whole of the North Devon estate was offered for sale [4] by his heir [5] to meet death duties. The property comprised 15,624 acres, including Hudscott House (the former Rolle seat) as lot 1, and the historic Brightley Barton, both in the parish of Chittlehampton, with 110 farms, 16 smallholdings, 125 cottages, numerous village shops, two licensed inns, with sporting rights including 5 miles of salmon fishing on the River Taw. The lands concerned were producing about £28,855 per annum in rents. [6] The auction of 365 lots took place over four days at Great Torrington Town Hall (dominated then as today by old portraits on every wall of the Rolle family, former lords of the manor, including the massive portrait of Lord Rolle by Lawrence [7] ) from 13 to 17 October 1958. Many of the farms were purchased by their tenants.
The estate owns 350 houses mostly in villages, let mainly to established local families, unfurnished on assured shorthold tenancies, "maintained to a high standard through a programme of regular repair and painting". [8]
The estate's property investment and development business is operated by CCH Property Company Ltd. The estate owns properties elsewhere in England, but those in Devon include mixed office and retail in Tiverton, Exeter and Plymouth, with further south-west properties in Taunton in Somerset. The company is acquisitive and continues to buy commercial property in England. It claims to deliver "a professional service based on 500 years of property management experience", [9] that is to say going back to the era of George Rolle (d.1552) who built up the first Devonshire estate of the Rolle family.
The estate owns and lets commercial property to 120 small and medium-sized businesses which employ in total about 1,500 people, mainly in rural East Devon. The properties in East Devon include: Liverton Business Park, on the outskirts of Exmouth; South Farm Court, converted agricultural buildings one mile from Budleigh Salterton; Dotton Business Units, six converted agricultural buildings forming a light industrial estate near Bicton, between the villages of Newton Poppleford and Colaton Raleigh; the Old Sawmills Industrial Estate, a light industrial estate on the edge of Colaton Raleigh. [10]
The estate owns and manages over 17,000 acres of farmland in Devon which comprise 34 farms of which 30 are tenanted (ranging in size from 150 to 750 acres), two are managed in-hand and two further farms are managed in-hand on a share-farming basis, a form of legal partnership. [11]
The two in-hand farms include a 2,800 acre organic farm with land situated mainly in the Lower Otter Valley. It is a mixed farm, with arable, dairy and sheep-breeding operations. [12]
Part of the estate's lands are used as allotments for the use of small-scale vegetable and flower growing by schools, families and individuals in several towns and villages. [11]
200 acres of land is used as community sports fields. [11]
The estate built and manages Bicton Arena and cross-country course as a facility for equestrian sports, "widely regarded as the finest equestrian facility in the South West". [13]
2,800 acres comprise the East Devon Pebblebed Heaths, one of the greatest areas of lowland heath in surviving in England, a valuable habitat for wildlife, principally rare birds and insects. Part is within land designated by the government as the East Devon Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. It is not managed as a commercial enterprise, but is managed with joint financial input from the Estate, government grants and the East Devon Pebblebed Heaths Conservation Trust, which employs full-time wardens and volunteers to look after the terrain. The estate opened the heathland to public access "for air and exercise" following a legal deed it signed in 1930. [14]
The estate includes 1,900 hectares of woodland, managed on a commercial basis. [15] Charles Trefusis, 21st Baron Clinton (1863–1957) was especially interested in forestry and served as Chairman of the Forestry Commission from 1927 to 1929. That body had been established to re-stock the nation's timber following the depletion wrought by World War I, and after the Commission's first major planning meeting in London, two of the founding commissioners, Lord Clinton and Lord Fraser, both owners of large estates, held a competition to see who could plant the first new Commission Forest. Clinton reached home in Devon before Fraser reached his Scottish estate, and having arrived at Eggesford Station he immediately set his estate staff to work nearby in planting a forest of Douglas Firs, completed on 8 December 1919, now known as Flashdown Wood, part of Eggesford Forest. Without delay he sent Lovat a telegram announcing his feat, which was received as Lovat stepped off the train from London, having just completed the long journey to Scotland. [16]
Lord Clinton does not have an executive role in directing the operations, but is nevertheless "inextricably linked to all on the estate". [17] Clinton Devon Estates is not an incorporated entity but is governed by trustees, "in partnership with the family". [18] There are 30 different trusts involved in the governance structure. The present Director (which post was formerly known as "Agent" or "Steward") is John Varley, appointed in 2000, a former executive at British Telecom and an officer in the Territorial Army and a board member of the Government quango Environment Agency. [19] His employment brief was "to put the estate on a more sound commercial footing and identify areas for growth, while also looking to the future". He stated in 2013: "A long-term mindset influences all I do... We have to make money while also thinking about what we are leaving. The family ethos underpins all. There is the whole principle of stewardship". Since 2000 he has refocused the business away from unprofitable and risky businesses such as selling tractors, garden machinery and furniture and onto core property and land operations and has doubled net income. He attended a course at the International Institute for Management Development business school in Lausanne, Switzerland, [20] with Lord Clinton’s son and heir apparent Charles Fane Trefusis, the non-executive chairman of CCH, the property investment and development arm. The estate's 10-year plan in 2013 aimed to double income once more and to complete a £14m investment in phase two of the development of Liverton business park, including the building of 500 houses, and to invest in renewable energy projects. [18]
Regarding his family's role in the business Charles Fane-Trefusis stated: [20]
Trustees of Devon Clinton Estates include:
Baron Clinton is a title in the Peerage of England. Created in 1298 for Sir John de Clinton, it is the seventh-oldest barony in England.
Bicton is a civil parish and a former manor in the East Devon district of Devon, England, near the town of Budleigh Salterton. The parish is surrounded, clockwise from the north, by the parishes of Colaton Raleigh, Otterton, East Budleigh and Woodbury. According to the 2001 census it had a population of 280. Much of the parish consists of Bicton Park, designed by André Le Nôtre, the French landscape architect and the principal gardener of the Sun King, Louis XIV, who designed the gardens of the Palace of Versailles. It is the historic home of the Rolle family, with Bicton Common, adjacent to Woodbury Common, in the west. The parish includes the village of Yettington on its southern border.
John Rolle, 1st Baron Rolle was a British politician and peer who served as a Member of Parliament in general support of William Pitt the Younger and was later an active member of the House of Lords. His violent attacks on Edmund Burke and Charles James Fox in the early 1780s led to his being the target for satirical attack in the Rolliad. He was colonel of the South Devon Militia and was instrumental in forming the Royal 1st Devon Yeomanry and the North Devon Yeomanry.
Charles Henry Rolle Hepburn-Stuart-Forbes-Trefusis, 20th Baron Clinton, styled The Honourable Charles Trefusis between 1832 and 1866, was a British Conservative politician. He served as Under-Secretary of State for India from 1867 to 1868.
Callington was a rotten borough in Cornwall which returned two Members of Parliament to the House of Commons in the English and later British Parliament from 1585 to 1832, when it was abolished by the Reform Act 1832.
Baron Rolle was a title created twice in the Peerage of Great Britain for members of the Rolle family, related as uncle and nephew.
Bicton House, or Bickton House, is a late 18th- or early 19th-century country house, which stands on the campus of Bicton College, Bicton, near Exmouth, East Devon. It is a Grade II* listed building. The park and gardens are Grade I listed in the National Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.
Huish is a small village, civil parish and former manor in the Torridge district of Devon, England. The eastern boundary of the parish is formed by the River Torridge and the western by the Rivers Mere and Little Mere, and it is surrounded, clockwise from the north, by the parishes of Merton, Dolton, Meeth and Petrockstowe. In 2001 the population of the parish was 49, down from 76 in 1901.
John Trefusis lord of the manor of Trefusis in the parish of Mylor in Cornwall, was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1621 to 1622.
Hon. Mark George Kerr Rolle, of Stevenstone, St Giles in the Wood, Devon, was High Sheriff of Devon in 1864, a DL of Devon and High Steward of Barnstaple.
Stevenstone is a former manor within the parish of St Giles in the Wood, near Great Torrington, North Devon. It was the chief seat of the Rolle family, one of the most influential and wealthy of Devon families, from c. 1524 until 1907. The Rolle estates as disclosed by the Return of Owners of Land, 1873 comprised 55,592 acres producing an annual gross income of £47,170, and formed the largest estate in Devon, followed by the Duke of Bedford's estate centred on Tavistock comprising 22,607 with an annual gross value of nearly £46,000.
Samuel Rolle (1669-1735) of Hudscott, Chittlehampton, Devon, was MP for Barnstaple between 1705 and 1708. He was a member of a cadet branch of the influential Rolle family of Stevenstone.
Heanton Satchville was a historic manor in the parish of Petrockstowe, North Devon, England. With origins in the Domesday manor of Hantone, it was first recorded as belonging to the Yeo family in the mid-14th century and was then owned successively by the Rolle, Walpole and Trefusis families. The mansion house was destroyed by fire in 1795. In 1812 Lord Clinton purchased the manor and mansion of nearby Huish, renamed it Heanton Satchville, and made it his seat. The nearly-forgotten house was featured in the 2005 edition of Rosemary Lauder's "Vanished Houses of North Devon". A farmhouse now occupies the former stable block with a large tractor shed where the house once stood. The political power-base of the Rolle family of Heanton Satchville was the pocket borough seat of Callington in Cornwall, acquired in 1601 when Robert Rolle purchased the manor of Callington.
Margaret Rolle, 15th Baroness Clintonsuo jure, was a wealthy British aristocrat, known both for eccentricity and her extramarital affairs.
Potheridge is a former Domesday Book estate in the parish of Merton, in the historic hundred of Shebbear, 3 miles south-east of Great Torrington, Devon, England. It is the site of a former grand mansion house re-built by George Monck, 1st Duke of Albemarle (1608–1670) circa 1660 on the site of the former manor house occupied by his family since at the latest 1287. It was mostly demolished in 1734 after the death of the widow of his son Christopher Monck, 2nd Duke of Albemarle.
Denys Rolle was a British politician and landowner who was an independent member of parliament for Barnstaple between 1761 and 1774. He inherited a large number of estates and by the time of his death he was the largest landowner in Devon. He was a philanthropist and generous benefactor to charities and religious societies.
Hudscott is a historic estate within the parish and former manor of Chittlehampton, Devon. From 1700 it became a seat of a junior branch of the influential Rolle family of Heanton Satchville, Petrockstowe and in 1779 became a secondary seat of the senior Rolle family of Stevenstone, then the largest landowner in Devon. Hudscott House, classified in 1967 a Grade II* listed building, is situated one mile south-east of the village of Chittlehampton. It was largely rebuilt in the 17th century by the Lovering family and in the late 17th century became a refuge for ejected Presbyterial ministers. In 1737 its then occupant Samuel II Rolle (1703-1747) purchased the manor of Chittlehampton and thus Hudscott House became in effect the manor house of Chittlehampton.
Heanton Satchville is an estate in the parish of Huish in Devon. It took its name from the nearby former ancient estate of Heanton Satchville, Petrockstowe. It is the seat of Baron Clinton who owns the largest private estate in Devon, known as Clinton Devon Estates.
The Manor of Otterton was a medieval manor in East Devon, England.
The Manor of Bicton is an historic manor in the parish of Bicton in east Devon, England.
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