The feudal barony of Bampton was one of eight feudal baronies in Devonshire which existed during the mediaeval era, and had its caput at Bampton Castle within the manor of Bampton. [1]
The Domesday Book of 1086 lists Baentone as one of the 27 Devon holdings of Walter of Douai, also known therein as Walscin. [2] Walter was also feudal baron of Castle Cary in Somerset. [3] At Bampton he established a castle, [4] the motte of which survives today. The manor was a very large holding of 76 households, [5] and previously to the Norman Conquest of England of 1066 had been held in demesne by King Edward the Confessor. As a manor in the royal demesne it had paid no tax. [lower-alpha 1] Walter had obtained it from William the Conqueror in exchange for the manors previously granted to him of Ermington and Blackawton. [6] According to the Book of Fees [7] the member manors of the barony of Bampton included: Duvale, Hele (possibly Hele, Clayhanger), [8] Doddiscombe, Hockworthy, Havekareland (possibly Hawkerland, Colaton Raleigh), [6] and Legh (Lea Barton, Hockworthy). [6] Walter held the manor of Bampton in demesne, but nevertheless he had three tenants who held land somewhere within the manor, namely two men named Rademar, one of whom appears to have been a tenant of several of Walter's Somerset manors. [9] One may possibly have been Rademar the Clerk, Walter's brother. [10] The third tenant was Gerard, thought to have been Walter's steward and his tenant at Bratton Seymour in Somerset. [10] The descent from Walter of Douai was as follows: [11]
The Duchess of Cleveland in her Battle Abbey Roll stated of the Paynel (alias Painell, Paganel, Pagnell, etc.) family: "The various accounts of it, either by Dugdale, or the county historians of places where they held lands, are so contradictory to each other, that to endeavour to reconcile them to any degree of correctness would require more consumption of time and expense in the investigation of public records, than would compensate any author for the undertaking."—Banks. I, for one, should be far from coveting such a task, even if I possessed the ability that it would require". [12] The descent of Paynel, feudal barons of Bampton is as follows, according to Sanders (1960):
The first members of this family to have come to England were Wynebald de Ballon (c. 1058 – c. 1126), and his brother Hamelin de Ballon (c. 1060 – c. 1090 or 1105/6), sons of Drogo (or Dru) de Ballon, lord of the castle of Ballon, 12 miles north of Le Mans, capital of the ancient province of Maine. From its strength the castle was known as "The Gateway to Maine". Ballon is today a French commune, in the department of Sarthe (72), in the modern region of Pays de la Loire. Maine was invaded and conquered by William Duke of Normandy in the early 1060s, just prior to his invasion of England.
The FitzWarin family were powerful Marcher Lords seated at Whittington Castle in Shropshire and at Alveston in Gloucestershire. The title Baron FitzWarin was created by writ of summons for Fulk FitzWarine in 1295. The descent of the barony of Bampton in the FitzWarin family is as follows: [30]
Sir Richard Hankford (c. 1397 – 1431) (grandson and heir of Sir William Hankford (died 1422) of Annery, Devon, Lord Chief Justice of England) married as his first wife Elizabeth FitzWarin, 8th Baroness FitzWarin (c. 1404 – c. 1427). Upon her death the barony must have been in abeyance between her daughters Thomasine Hankford (1423–1453), born and baptised at Tawstock, [33] and Elizabeth Hankford (c. 1424 – 1433) until the death of the latter in 1433, when Thomasine became 9th Baroness.
The Bourchier family, the Devon branch of which, seated at Tawstock Court, was later created Earls of Bath, retained the manor of Bampton until at least the time of Risdon (died 1640) who states in his Survey of Devon that "the Earl of Bath is lord of this manor". [4] The descent of Bampton was as follows:
The heir of the Bourchiers was the Wrey family of Trebeigh Manor, St Ive, Cornwall. [43] On the death of Henry Bourchier, 5th Earl of Bath (died 1654), the last in the male line, the title became extinct. The co-heiresses to the Bourchier lands became the three daughters of his first cousin once removed Edward Bourchier, 4th Earl of Bath (1590–1636). The 3rd daughter, Lady Anne Bourchier (born 1631), married firstly James Cranfield, 2nd Earl of Middlesex, the issue of which marriage was soon extinct [44] and secondly to Sir Chichester Wrey, 3rd Baronet (1628–1668), whose descendants inherited the principal Bourchier seat of Tawstock. The Devon biographer John Prince (died 1723) stated that in his day the most part of Bampton remained the posterity of the former Earls of Bath and was the "noble seat" of Lady Wrey, dowager of Sir Bourchier Wrey, 4th Baronet (died 1696). [lower-alpha 5]
An old mansion near Bampton Castle, called Castle Grove, was the residence of the Tristram family, [45] who according to Lysons (1822) probably purchased it from the Bourchiers. A mural monument to John Tristram (1668–1722), last of the family to occupy the estate of Duvale within the parish of Bampton, exists in the parish church. [lower-alpha 6] In 1822, the site of the castle was the property of Robert Lucas, Esq., heir to the Tristram family. [24]
In 1720, the manor of Bampton was owned by William Arnold, gentleman. [24]
In 1720, the manor of Bampton was purchased from William Arnold by William Fellowes (died 1724) and his brother Sir John Fellowes, 1st Baronet (died 1724), Deputy Governor of the South Sea Company. The latter died childless.
The following deeds are held by Norfolk Record Office: [46]
"Deeds re £30,000 for purchase of estate for William Fellowes, his son-in-law, left by will of Joseph Martyn 1715; manors of Eggesford, Chawley, Borriston, Cheldon, Cudlip, East Warlington, Witheridge, Drayton; hundred of Witheridge; capital messuage called Eggesford, and farm and advowson, Devon, and manor of Mountsey and estates, Somerset, Lord Doneralle to William Fellowes 1718".
William Fellowes died on 19 January 1723 and was buried at Eggesford, where a neo-classical monument survives in Eggesford Church. [lower-alpha 7] His elder son Coulson Fellowes (1696–1769), married Urania Herbert, daughter of Francis Herbert of Oakly Park, Shropshire. The marriage settlement dated 1725 required him to transfer to trustees in tail male the following lands: [47]
"Manors of Eggesford, Chawley also Chawleigh, Borrington also Burrington, Cheldon Cudlip East Worlington Witherigges also Witheridge and Drayford, the Hundred of Witherigges, the capital messuage called Eggesford in Eggesford parish and Chawley, other lands in parish of Eggesford, Wembworthy, Chawley, Borrington, Winkley Rings Ash Dowland Rose Ash Crediton, South Tawton, Great Torrington, Cholmley Cheldon Cudlip East Worlington Witheridges and Drayford, parts of the Manor, borough, hundred, rights and lands of Northtawton, the Manor, borough, hundred, rights and lands of Brampton (sic, Bampton), the Manor of Hollacomb Parramore in p. of Wynkley, lands in Winkley and Winkley Town, messuages in Goldsmith Street and Keylane by Key Gate, Exeter, parts of messuages in Moreton Hamstead and Chagford and the advowsons of the churches of Eggesford, Chawley, Cheldon, and East Worlington, Devon, and the Manor of Mountsey also Mounyseaux and lands in Mounseaux and Dullverton, Somerset".
Coulson Fellowes married in 1768 Lavinia Smyth, daughter of James Smyth of St Audries, Somerset, and had children, their elder son being William Henry Fellowes (1769–1837). [48] Henry Arthur Fellowes, the younger son to whom the Devon properties passed, died in 1792. [49]
In 1822, the barony was the property of the Honourable Newton Fellowes, [24] (1772–1854) of Eggesford. He was born Wewton Wallop", the younger son of John Wallop, 2nd Earl of Portsmouth (died 1797) and his wife Urania Fellowes, sister of Henry Arthur Fellows (died 1792). He changed his name to Fellowes after having become heir to the Fellowes estates, including Eggesford and Bampton, and eventually inherited the Earldom of Portsmouth as 4th Earl, after the death of his elder brother John Wallop, 3rd Earl of Portsmouth (1767–1853).
William de Redvers, 5th Earl of Devon, of Tiverton Castle and Plympton Castle, both in Devon, was feudal baron of Plympton in Devon.
John Bourchier, 1st Earl of Bath was named Earl of Bath in 1536. He was feudal baron of Bampton in Devon.
John Bourchier, 2nd Earl of Bath, was an Earl in the peerage of England. He also succeeded to the titles of 12th Baron FitzWarin, Baron Daubeney and 4th Count of Eu.
Tawstock is a village, civil parish and former manor in North Devon in the English county of Devon, England. The parish is surrounded clockwise from the north by the parishes of Barnstaple, Bishop's Tawton, Atherington, Yarnscombe, Horwood, Lovacott and Newton Tracey and Fremington. In 2001 it had a population of 2,093. The estimated population in June 2019 was 2,372.
Fulk Bourchier, 10th Baron FitzWarin was the son and heir of William Bourchier, 9th Baron FitzWarin (1407–1470) and the father of John Bourchier, 1st Earl of Bath. He was feudal baron of Bampton in Devon.
Baron FitzWarin was a title in the Peerage of England created by writ of summons for Fulk V FitzWarin in 1295. His family had been magnates for nearly a century, at least since 1205 when his grandfather Fulk III FitzWarin obtained Whittington Castle near Oswestry, which was their main residence and the seat of a marcher lordship.
James Audley, 2nd Baron Audley of Heighley Castle, Staffordshire, was an English peer. He was the son and heir of Nicholas Audley, 1st Baron Audley (1289–1316) by his wife Joan Martin, who was the daughter of William Martin, feudal baron of Barnstaple, and Marcher Lord of Kemes. She was posthumously the eventual sole heiress of her brother William FitzMartin to Barnstaple and Kemes.
John Montagu, 3rd Earl of Salisbury and 5th and 2nd Baron Montagu, KG was an English nobleman, one of the few who remained loyal to Richard II after Henry IV became king.
Sir Neil Loring, KG, was a medieval English soldier and diplomat and a founding member of the Order of the Garter, established by King Edward III in 1348. The central character in two historical novels by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sir Nigel and The White Company, is loosely based on Neil Loring.
From AD 1066, the feudal barony of Barnstaple was a large feudal barony with its caput at the town of Barnstaple in north Devon, England. It was one of eight feudal baronies in Devonshire which existed in the Middle Ages. In 1236 it comprised 56 knight's fees or individual member manors. The feudal service owed for half the barony in 1274 was the provision to the royal army of two knights or four sergeants for forty days per annum, later commuted to scutage.
Brightley was historically the principal secondary estate within the parish and former manor of Chittlehampton in the county of Devon, England, situated about 2 1/4 miles south-west of the church and on a hillside above the River Taw. From the early 16th century to 1715 it was the seat of the Giffard family, whose mansion house occupied the moated site immediately to the west of the present large farmhouse known as Brightley Barton, a Grade II listed building which incorporates some elements of the earlier house. It is not to be confused with the 12th-century Brightley Priory near Okehampton.
Annery was an historic estate in the parish of Monkleigh, North Devon.
Milo de Cogan was an Anglo-Norman knight from Glamorgan who played a significant role in the Norman conquest of Ireland under Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Pembroke; a man better known to Irish history as Strongbow.
William Bourchier (1407–1470) jure uxoris 9th Baron FitzWarin, was an English nobleman. He was summoned to Parliament in 1448 as Baron FitzWarin in right of his wife Thomasine Hankford.
The Bourchier knot is a variety of heraldic knot. It was used as a heraldic badge by the Bourchier family, whose earliest prominent ancestor in England was John de Bourchier, a Judge of the Common Pleas, seated at Stanstead Hall in the parish of Halstead, Essex. He was the father of Robert Bourchier, 1st Baron Bourchier (d.1349), Lord Chancellor of England. The various branches of his descendants held the titles Baron Bourchier, Count of Eu, Viscount Bourchier, Earl of Essex, Baron Berners, Baron FitzWarin and Earl of Bath. The knot should perhaps have been called the "FitzWarin knot" as according to Boutell (1864) the device was first used by the FitzWarin family, whose heir was the Bourchier family.
Fulk I FitzWarin was a powerful marcher lord seated at Whittington Castle in Shropshire in England on the border with Wales, and also at Alveston in Gloucestershire. His grandson was Fulk III FitzWarin the subject of the famous mediaeval legend or "ancestral romance" entitled Fouke le Fitz Waryn, himself the grandfather of Fulk V FitzWarin, 1st Baron FitzWarin (1251-1315).
Ash in the parish of Braunton in North Devon is a historic estate listed in the Domesday Book. The present mansion, known as The Ash Barton estate is a Grade II* listed building.
The historic manor of Tawstock was situated in North Devon, in the hundred of Fremington, 2 miles south of Barnstaple, England. According to Pole the feudal baron of Barnstaple Henry de Tracy made Tawstock his seat, apparently having abandoned Barnstaple Castle as the chief residence of the barony. Many of the historic lords of the manor are commemorated by monuments in St Peter's Church, the parish church of Tawstock which in the opinion of Pevsner contains "the best collection in the county apart from those in the cathedral", and in the opinion of Hoskins "contains the finest collection of monuments in Devon and one of the most notable in England".
Margaret II Audley was a co-heiress to the feudal barony of Barnstaple in Devon, England.
Sir Richard Hankford was holder by right of his wife of the feudal barony of Bampton and part of the feudal barony of Barnstaple in Devon, England.