Ernsborough (modern: "Irishborough") is an historic Saxon estate dating from the 9th or 11th century, situated in the parish of Swimbridge in Devon, England, about 2 miles south-east of the village of Swimbridge. It is best remembered today for having contained during the 14th century a high-status mansion house [1] occupied by the Mules or De Moels family, closely related to Baron Moels of Somerset.
The estate of Ernsborough clearly pre-dates the Norman Conquest of 1066, as is suggested by the name which is of West-Saxon origin signifying "Eagle's hill, [3] mound or burial mound (barrow)" [4] (Earnes Beorh/Beorg), or "Eagle's fortified place" (-burh/burg). [5] The West Saxons reached Devon in the 8th century, but the name may be even earlier, if deemed a translation of a Celtic name. [2] The boundary of the Saxon estate is still recognisable today in the form of a curvi-linear hedgebank, and contains or abuts three historic settlements: on the eastern side "Tower Farm", so named after 1845 [6] and probably the original location of the mansion house of Ernsborough; "East Irishborough", to the immediate south-west of Tower Farm, shown on the Ordnance Survey map of 1888 but since demolished, [7] and to the west in the centre of the enclosure, the farm of "West Irishborough". [8] Such a three-settlement arrangement is common with many ancient Devonshire estates. [9] [ page needed ]
Ernsborough is not recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086; the estate first appears in surviving records in the Pipe Rolls of 1175. [10]
Until the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 16th century, the Bishop of Exeter was the lord of the manor of Bishop's Tawton, a large manor which included the parishes of Swimbridge and Landkey. The bishop was a major landholder who was seated at the Bishop's Palace in Exeter. Thus in the absence of a manor house with a great hall in which the lord's steward could transact manorial business, a court house would have been required.[ citation needed ] After the Dissolution of the Monasteries the lord of the manor of Bishop's Tawton was the Earl of Bedford, later Duke of Bedford, also non-resident. In 1773 the mansion house was a ruin, with only a tower remaining. [11]
Much quarrying work and lime burning was carried out on the estate in the 19th century and prior, which has left major traces on the landscape. An unusually shaped lime-kiln survives, [12] with several flooded quarries.
The earliest history of Ernsborough [13] is given by Tristram Risdon (died 1640), who stated that the first recorded holder of Ernsborough was Baldwin de Ernsborough, living at the start of the reign of King Henry III (1216–1272). [14] The de Ernsborough family held the estate for a further three generations, when it passed to the Flavell family. [14]
The Faluel family, a Norman family often cited as "Flavelle" because the "l" and "a" were reversed in handwritten documents (modern spelling is Fallwell), held Ernsborough after the de Ernsboroughs. They eventually died out without a male heir. The last in the male line obtained the wardship [15] and marriage of the young Roger Mules (described by Risdon as "sir Roger Mules, second son to the Lord Mules, Baron of North-Cadbury in Somersetshire" [14] ) and married him off to his own daughter and heiress, as was his right. Thus Ernesborough descended into the Mules family.
The identity of Sir Roger Mules "second son to the Lord Mules" and husband of the heiress of Ernsborough, is uncertain. The first certain ancestor of the 1st Baron Moels was his grandfather Nicholas de Moels (c. 1195 – 1264/72) of North Cadbury in Somerset, of unknown parentage, [16] a household knight and royal administrator of King Henry III, [17] who apart from having received a few royal grants of land in his own right, in 1230 married Hawise de Newmarch the wealthy co-heiress of the feudal barony of North Cadbury, which transformed him into a major landholder and feudal baron. In 1230 he was granted by King Henry III the Devonshire manors of King's Carswell and Diptford. [18] His second but eldest surviving son by Hawise was Roger de Moels (c.1233/7 – 1294) (father of the 1st Baron), who in 1268 received a grant of a weekly market and annual fair at his manor of King's Carswell [19] In 1293 he was appointed Keeper of the Forest of Braydon in Wiltshire. [20]
It is believed [23] that the second son of Roger de Moels (c.1233/7-1294), feudal baron of North Cadbury (and thus a brother of the 1st Baron) was a certain Sir [24] Roger de Moels (d.1323 [23] ) of Lustleigh in Devon, called a "King's Yeoman" in 1301, who married Alice le Prouz (1286–1335 [23] ), daughter and heiress of Sir William le Prouz (or Prouse) of Gidleigh Castle, [25] Chagford and of Lustleigh, by his wife Alice de Reyny [23] (said by Vivian (1895) to have been Alice Widworthy, daughter and heiress of Sir Hugh Widworthy, who remarried to Sir John Damerell. [26] The Prouz family was the heir of the Widworthys of Lustleigh, according to Risdon [24] ). Roger de Moels (died 1323) of Lustleigh is known to have had a son William de Moels (fl.1318), possibly by an earlier wife. [23]
Nicholas de Moels, 2nd Baron Moels (died 1316) certainly had a Devonshire connection as he married Margaret Courtenay (died 1349) a daughter of Sir Hugh de Courtenay (died 1292), feudal baron of Okehampton and father of Hugh de Courtenay, 1st/9th Earl of Devon (died 1340), but died without issue.
The descent from Roger Mules and his wife the Flavell heiress was as follows:
John Mules (fl.1428), (son of the second John Mules), who, being childless, according to "R.J.M." (1952) in 1428 transferred Ernsborough to his brother Thomas Mules. [27] It was apparently this John Mules [evidently not the one who was childless] who is recorded in the Heraldic Visitations of Devon [29] as having married twice:
Thus, as summarised by Humphreys (2003) (relying on Lysons (1822) [37] ): "A female descendant brought it to the family of D'Abernon and a further female brought it to Gifford". [13]
A monument to John Mules (died 1633) of Halmeston in the parish of Bishop's Tawton (next to Swimbridge on the south) survives in Bishop's Tawton Church. This mentions the descent of the Mules family of Ernsborough as follows:
Risdon wrote as follows: [38]
The Cowell family later occupied Ersborough, whether as tenants or freeholders is unknown. At Ernesborough was born the jurist John Cowell (1554–1611), Master of Trinity Hall Cambridge, and author of "The Interpreter", the well-known dictionary of legal terms. [39]
In 1773 the mansion house was a ruin, with only a tower remaining. [11] In 1902 "Irishborough manor house" was the property of Rev. Henry Tubal Hole, Rector of Plympton St. Maurice. [40] The site is today covered by the central settlement of "West Irishborough", which in the 18th century had the status of barton [41] or principal farm, and to the east on the edge of the historic curvi-linear estate, "Tower Farm", [8] believed to have been the site of the mansion house [42] of the Mules family.
On the 1845 Tithe Apportionment "Tower Farm" is listed as being partly owned by Earl Fortescue, of nearby Castle Hill, Filleigh, and partly by John Nott of Bydown House, Swimbridge, whose family had been yeomen farmers in Swimbridge for many centuries but had recently acquired much wealth having married a wealthy heiress. [43] "Irishborough", a larger estate (probably today's "West Irishborough", probably of mediaeval origin, [1] on which no substantial farmhouse existed in 1845, only farm-buildings and cottages [44] ) is listed as being owned by Henry Hole. [45]
John Nott (1805–1856) of Bydown House, who was the lessee of the tithes of Swimbridge, himself claimed descent from the Mules family of Ernsborough, by the 1762 marriage of his grandfather James Nott (died 1790) to Emme Mules, a daughter of John Mules of Tawstock, [46] which parish is situated across the River Taw from Bishop's Tawton.
A late 19th century brass memorial tablet affixed to the outer wall of St Bridget's Chapel in Swimbridge Church, states that John Nott (9 Feb 1690 – 9 May 1756) was married to "Amy, daughter of John Mules, Esqre, lineally descended through Mules of Helmeston and Ernsborough in this parish (of whom was Sir John de Moeles or Mules who built this aisle) ..."
Halsbury is a historic manor in the parish of Parkham in North Devon, England. It is situated 2 miles north-east of the village of Parkham and 4 miles south-west of the town of Bideford. Halsbury was long a seat of the ancient Giffard family, a distant descendant of which was the celebrated lawyer Hardinge Stanley Giffard, 1st Earl of Halsbury (1823–1921), who adopted the name Halsbury for his earldom and was the author of the essential legal reference books Halsbury's Statutes. Halsbury Barton, now a farmhouse, retains 16th- and 17th-century elements of the former manor house of the Giffard family. It was described in a record of 1560 as a "new dwelling house".
Sir John Fowell, 3rd Baronet of Fowelscombe in the parish of Ugborough in Devon, was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1689 to 1692.
Sir John III Chichester of Hall was member of parliament for Lostwithiel in Cornwall in 1624.
Sir Lewis Pollard of Grilstone in the parish of Bishop's Nympton, Devon, was Justice of the Common Pleas from 1514 to 1526 and served as MP for Totnes in 1491 and was a JP in Devon in 1492. He was knighted after 1509. He was one of several Devonshire men to be "innated with a genius to study law", as identified by Fuller, who became eminent lawyers at a national level. He was a kinsman of the judge and Speaker of the House of Commons Sir John Pollard.
Hall is a large estate within the parish and former manor of Bishop's Tawton, Devon. It was for several centuries the seat of a younger branch of the prominent and ancient North Devon family of Chichester of Raleigh, near Barnstaple. The mansion house is situated about 2 miles south-east of the village of Bishop's Tawton and 4 miles south-east of Barnstaple, and sits on a south facing slope of the valley of the River Taw, overlooking the river towards the village of Atherington. The house and about 2,500 acres of surrounding land continues today to be owned and occupied by descendants, via a female line, of the Chichester family. The present Grade II* listed neo-Jacobean house was built by Robert Chichester between 1844 and 1847 and replaced an earlier building. Near the house to the south at the crossroads of Herner the Chichester family erected in the 1880s a private chapel of ease which contains mediaeval woodwork saved from the demolished Old Guildhall in Barnstaple.
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The Manor of Molland was a medieval manor in North Devon, England. It was largely co-terminous with the existing parish of Molland, in which is situated the village of Molland. More accurately it consisted from the earliest times of two separate manors, held from separate overlords, later known as Molland-Bottreaux and Molland-Champson.
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Pill is an historic estate in the parish of Bishop's Tawton, near Barnstaple, in North Devon, England. The surviving 18th-century mansion house known as Pill House is a grade II* listed building situated close to the east bank of the River Taw about 1 mile south of the historic centre of Barnstaple and 1 mile north of Bishop's Tawton Church. It was long a seat of a junior branch of the Chichester family of Hall, Bishop's Tawton. At some time before 1951 it was converted into apartments and is at present in multiple occupation.
Sir Thomas Courtenay of Wootton Courtenay in Somerset, was a knight and an English military commander against the French during the Hundred Years' War, who died about six years after the Battle of Poitiers.
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The lord of the manor of Swimbridge in Devon, England, until the 20th century was the Duke of Bedford, of Woburn Abbey in Bedfordshire and of Endsleigh Cottage in Devon, whose ancestor John Russell, 1st Earl of Bedford (c.1485–1555) of Chenies in Buckinghamshire and of Bedford House in Exeter, Devon, was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Devon by King Henry VIII and obtained large grants of land in that county following the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Thus there is no manor house in Swimbridge as the lord was non-resident. The location of the court house where manorial business was transacted may have been Ernesborough.