Frithelstock Priory was founded in about 1220 at Frithelstock, Devon, England, by Sir Robert de Beauchamp for Augustinian Canons Regular, as an indulgence to ensure intercessions for the repose of his soul. Walter de Stapledon, Bishop of Exeter, is considered a co-founder, for increasing the priory's endowments.
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, 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 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.
Sir John St Leger, of Annery in the parish of Monkleigh, Devon, was an English landowner who served in local and national government.
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.
Hon. Mark George Kerr Rolle (1835–1907), of Stevenstone, St Giles in the Wood, Devon, was High Sheriff of Devon in 1864, a DL of Devon and High Steward of Barnstaple. Due to an inheritance from his uncle by marriage, John Rolle, 1st Baron Rolle (1750–1842), he became 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. He was a prolific philanthropist and builder and restorer of churches, farmhouses and cottages, the latter for his estate workers.
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.
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.
Richard Duke was a lawyer and served as Clerk of the Court of Augmentations which position assisted him in acquiring large grants of former monastic lands in the West Country following the Dissolution of the Monasteries. He served as MP for Weymouth in 1545 and for Dartmouth in 1547 and as Sheriff of Devon in 1563–64.
George Rolle of Stevenstone in the parish of St Giles in the Wood near Great Torrington in Devon, was the founder of the wealthy, influential and widespread Rolle family of Devon, which according to the Return of Owners of Land, 1873 in the person of Hon. Mark Rolle, the adoptive heir of John Rolle, 1st Baron Rolle, had become by that year the largest landowner in Devon with about 55,000 acres. He was a Dorset-born London lawyer who in 1507 became Keeper of the Records of the Court of Common Pleas and was elected as a Member of Parliament for Barnstaple in 1542 and 1545. He became the steward of Dunkeswell Abbey in Devon, and following the Dissolution of the Monasteries he purchased much ex-monastic land in Devon. Not only was he the founder of his own great Devonshire landowning dynasty but he was also an ancestor of others almost as great, including the Acland baronets of Killerton, the Wrey Baronets of Tawstock and the Trefusis family of Trefusis in Cornwall now of Heanton Satchville, Huish, later Baron Clinton, heirs both of Rolle of Heanton Satchville, Petrockstowe and of Rolle of Stevenstone.
The Manor of Combe Martin was a medieval manor estate in Combe Martin, Devon, England.
Beam is an historic estate in the parish of Great Torrington, Devon, England. Beam House is situated about 1 1/2 miles north-west and downstream of that town, on the right-bank of the River Torridge. Both the Rolle Canal and the railway crossed the river nearby. It occupies a particularly beautiful setting, described by Lauder (1986) thus: "For lovers of rivers and woodland there can be few lovlier settings for a house than this. Steeply wooded banks shelter the valley and the house is situated on slightly higher ground above lush water meadows, almost completely surrounded by the Torridge" The estate was a subsidiary seat of the Rolle family, lords of the manor of Great Torrington, whose main seat was Stevenstone on the other (south) side of that town and therefore upstream from Beam. It was an outpost of the Royalists during the Civil War. Much of the estate is today owned by Baron Clinton, as heir to the Rolles, but it has had many occupants, including use by the army in both world wars and as a borstal. Tarka the Otter was born at Beam, by what the author Henry Williamson called the "Canal Bridge" and particularly favoured the River Torridge at Beam Weir. Thus the cycleway which crosses the river at Beam, formerly the railway line, was named the "Tarka Trail", due to its association with these and other haunts of the fictional animal. Today Beam is used as an adventure centre for young people.
Monkleigh is a village, parish and former manor in north Devon, England, situated 2 1/2 miles north-west of Great Torrington and 3 1/2 miles south-east of Bideford. An electoral ward exists titled Monkleigh and Littleham. The population at the 2011 census was 1,488.
The Manor of Monkleigh was a mediaeval manor centred on the village of Monkleigh in North Devon, England, situated 2 1/2 miles north-west of Great Torrington and 3 1/2 miles south-east of Bideford.
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.
Richard Stevens (1702–1776) of Winscott in the parish of Peters Marland, Devon, was Member of Parliament for Callington in Cornwall (1761–1768).
The Manor of Otterton was a medieval manor in East Devon, England.
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 Manor of Bicton is an historic manor in the parish of Bicton in east Devon, England.
Speccot is an historic estate in the parish of Merton in Devon, England. It was the seat of the de Speccot family, one of the oldest gentry families in Devon, which founded almshouses at Taddiport, near Great Torrington, Devon, in the 13th century. It is situated about one mile south-west of Potheridge, the seat of the Monck family from before 1287 to the late 17th century, who were thus close neighbours of the de Speccot family for many centuries. The present farmhouse known as "Speccot Barton" is Victorian and although no obvious traces of an earlier house survive, is marked "On Site of a Mansion" on the First Edition Ordnance Survey 25 inch map of 1880-99. The estate is today operated as a family-run sheep farm with six holiday cottages to let. A smaller house known as "Little Speccot" is situated on the approach lane to Speccot Barton.
