| Manor House | |
|---|---|
 In 1894 | |
| Location | West Coker, Somerset, England |
| Coordinates | 50°55′8.8″N2°41′3.8″W / 50.919111°N 2.684389°W |
| Built | c. 1500 |
Listed Building – Grade I | |
| Designated | 19 April 1961 [1] |
| Reference no. | 1345845 |
  Location of Manor House in Somerset | |
The Manor House in West Coker, Somerset, England has medieval origins, however the earliest surviving portions of the current building probably date from around 1500. It has been designated as a Grade I listed building. [1]
The earlier manor house on the site, which may have been built around 1308, [2] was destroyed by fire in the 1457, and rebuilt with local Hamstone between 1473 and 1500. [3] The fire was started by an "armed mob" led by the local rector as part of a dispute between local families of the House of Courtenay who were Earls of Devon then led by Thomas de Courtenay, 5th/13th Earl of Devon and the Bonville family led by William Bonville, 1st Baron Bonville. [2]
The house was acquired by the Portman Family of Orchard Portman in 1591 who remodelled it around 1600 and held it until 1829 by which time it was a tenanted farmhouse owned by Edward Portman, 1st Viscount Portman. [4] The house was purchased by an architect, John Moore, in 1866, who carried out various restoration and rebuilding until he died, when the work was continued by his brother and sons. [2]
In 1907 Matthew Nathan, a soldier and colonial administrator, who variously served as the governor of Sierra Leone, Gold Coast, Hong Kong, Natal and Queensland, bought the Manor House. Many politicians and other members of The Establishment visited him at the house. He lived there until his death in 1939. [5] Sir Aston Webb or his son Maurice Webb, rebuilt the South East wing for Nathan in 1910, [1] [2] and the house was profiled by Christopher Hussey in an early edition of Country Life magazine following the renovation and rebuilding. [2] [6] In 1935 Nathan allowed the grounds to be used by local scout groups during the celebrations of the silver jubilee of George V. [7]
The two-storey house now has a U-shaped plan following the additions to the original house in the 17th and 20th centuries. The west front is of six bays. Above the porch is the arms of the Portman family. Behind the porch is a screens passage leading to the hall and a staircase to a minstrels' gallery. The hall has an arch braced collar beam trussed roof and a 15th-century fireplace. The Portman Room has a frieze on the plaster ceiling and a heraldic overmantel above the fireplace. [1]
Powderham Castle is a fortified manor house situated within the parish and former manor of Powderham, within the former hundred of Exminster, Devon, about 6 miles (9.7 km) south of the city of Exeter and 1⁄4 mile (0.4 km) north-east of the village of Kenton, where the main public entrance gates are located. It is a Grade I listed building. The park and gardens are Grade II* listed in the National Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.
Staple Fitzpaine is a village and civil parish in Somerset, England, situated 5 miles (8.0 km) south of Taunton. The village has a population of 189 and is within the Blackdown Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The parish includes the hamlet of Badger Street.
Chittlehampton is a village and civil parish in the North Devon district of Devon, England, about 7 miles (11 km) south-west of Barnstaple. At the 2001 census, the parish had a population of 820.
Old Shute House, located at Shute, near Colyton, Axminster, Devon, is the remnant of a mediaeval manor house with Tudor additions, under the ownership of the National Trust. It was given a Grade I listing on 14 December 1955. It is one of the most important non-fortified manor houses of the Middle Ages still in existence. It was built about 1380 as a hall house and was greatly expanded in the late 16th century and partly demolished in 1785. The original 14th-century house survives, although much altered.
West Coker is a large village and civil parish in Somerset, England, situated 3 miles (4.8 km) south west of Yeovil in the South Somerset district.
Thomas de Courtenay, 5th/13th Earl of Devon was a nobleman from South West England. His seat was at Colcombe Castle near Colyton, and later at the principal historic family seat of Tiverton Castle, after his mother's death. The Courtenay family had historically been an important one in the region, and the dominant force in the counties of Devon and Cornwall. However, the rise in power and influence of several gentry families and other political players, in the years leading up to Thomas' accession to the earldom, threatened the traditional dominance of the earls of Devon in the area. Much of his life was spent in armed territorial struggle against his near-neighbour, Sir William Bonville of Shute, at a time when central control over the provinces was weak. This feud forms part of the breakdown in law and order in England that led to the Wars of the Roses.
The Bonville–Courtenay feud of 1455 engendered a series of raids, sieges, and attacks between two major Devon families, the Courtenays and the Bonvilles, in south west England, in the mid-fifteenth century. One of many such aristocratic feuds of the time, it became entwined with national politics due to the political weight of the protagonists. The Courtenay earls of Devon were the traditional powerbrokers in the region, but by this time a local baronial family, the Bonvilles, had become more powerful and rivalled the Courtenays for royal patronage. Eventually this rivalry spilled over into physical violence, including social disorder, murder, and siege.
Margaret Grey was a Cambro-Norman noblewoman, the daughter of Reginald Grey, 3rd Baron Grey de Ruthyn, a powerful Welsh Marcher Lord, who was the implacable enemy of Owain Glyndŵr.
William Bonville, 1st Baron Bonville, was an English nobleman and an important, powerful landowner in south-west England during the Late Middle Ages. Bonville's father died before Bonville reached adulthood. As a result, he grew up in the household of his grandfather and namesake, who was a prominent member of the Devon gentry. Both Bonville's father and grandfather had been successful in politics and land acquisition, and when Bonville came of age, he gained control of a large estate. He augmented this further by a series of lawsuits against his stepfather, Richard Stucley. Bonville undertook royal service, which then meant fighting in France in the later years of the Hundred Years' War. In 1415, he joined the English invasion of France in the retinue of Thomas, Duke of Clarence, Henry V's brother, and fought in the Agincourt campaign. Throughout his life, Bonville was despatched on further operations in France, but increasingly events in the south-west of England took up more of his time and energy, as he became involved in a feud with his powerful neighbour Thomas Courtenay, Earl of Devon.
Naish Priory in East Coker, Somerset, England, contains portions of a substantial house dating from the mid 14th century to around 1400. Emery says the building was not a priory as it had been termed by the late 19th-century owner Troyte Chafyn Grove, and there appears no evidence of ownership by a religious house or the residence of a large community of monks on the site. However, there is evidence of a dormitory and communal living dating from the 14th century, and the extant buildings grew on a foundation that had religious obligations by way of chantry to the de Courtenay Earls of Devon from at least 1344. It has been designated as a Grade I listed building, with the attached Priory Cottage and northern boundary railings.
Sir Philip Courtenay of Powderham, Devon, was the senior member of a junior branch of the powerful Courtenay family, Earls of Devon.
Thomas Courtenay, 6th/14th Earl of Devon, was the eldest son of Thomas de Courtenay, 5th/13th Earl of Devon, by his wife Margaret Beaufort, the daughter of John Beaufort, 1st Earl of Somerset, and Margaret Holland, daughter of Thomas Holland, 2nd Earl of Kent. Through his mother, he was a great-great-grandson of King Edward III. The ordinal number given to the early Courtenay Earls of Devon depends on whether the earldom is deemed a new creation by the letters patent granted 22 February 1334/5 or whether it is deemed a restitution of the old dignity of the de Redvers family. Authorities differ in their opinions, and thus alternative ordinal numbers exist, given here.
Colcombe Castle was a castle or fortified house situated about a 0.5 mi (0.80 km) north of the town of Colyton in East Devon.
Holcombe Rogus is a historic manor in the parish of Holcombe Rogus in Devon, England. The present grade I listed Tudor manor house known as Holcombe Court was built by Sir Roger Bluett c. 1540 and was owned by the Bluett family until 1858 when the estate was sold to Rev. William Rayer. The house is immediately to the west of the parish church. The gardens and grounds are screened off from the public road at the south by a high wall in which is a tall and broad entrance archway which forms the start of the entrance drive.
Haselbury Bridge is a stone built bridge dating from the 14th century in Haselbury Plucknett in the English county of Somerset. It is a scheduled monument and Grade II* listed building.
Mohuns Ottery or Mohun's Ottery, is a house and historic manor in the parish of Luppitt, 1 mile south-east of the village of Luppitt and 4 miles north-east of Honiton in east Devon, England. From the 14th to the 16th centuries it was a seat of the Carew family. Several manorial court rolls survive at the Somerset Heritage Centre, Taunton, Somerset.
Warleigh is an historic estate within the parish of Bickleigh in Devon, about 6 miles from Plymouth. Warleigh House, the manor house of the manor of Tamerton Foliot is situated one mile west of that village on the south-east bank of the River Tavy where it joins the River Tamar. It was remodelled in about 1830 in the Gothic style by John Foulston and has been listed Grade II* on the National Heritage List for England since 1960.
Upcott is an historic manor in the parish of Cheriton Fitzpaine, Devon. The manor house, known as Upcott Barton is a mediaeval grade II* listed building notorious in the history of Devon as the place where in 1455 the murder of the lawyer Nicholas Radford by a mob directed by the Earl of Devon during the Wars of the Roses took place. In the grounds is a reproduction of an Iron Age roundhouse built circa 2014.
Blagdon historically in the parish of Paignton in Devon, England (today in the parish of Collaton St Mary), is a historic Manor, the seat of the Kirkham family from the 13th to 17th centuries. The manor house known as Blagdon Manor (House) (or Blagdon Barton) survives as a grade II* listed building about two miles west of the historic centre of the town of Paignton, situated behind the "Blagdon Inn" public house (former stables), and almost surrounded by the "Devon Hills Holiday Park" of caravans and mobile homes, set-back at the end of a short driveway off the A385 Paignton to Totnes road. The settlements or farms of Higher Blagdon, Middle Blagdon and Lower Blagdon are situated to the north of the manor house.
Roger Wyck of Bindon in the parish of Axmouth in Devon, was a Member of Parliament for Plympton Erle in 1413.