Stevenstone | |
---|---|
Location | St Giles in the Wood |
Coordinates | 50°57′15″N4°05′54″W / 50.9542°N 4.0983°W |
Area | 55,592 acres |
Demolished |
|
Rebuilt | 1868-1872 |
Architect | Charles Barry Jr. |
Listed Building – Grade II | |
This article possibly contains original research .(July 2013) |
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 (corrected by Bateman, 1883) 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. [3]
From the Glorious Revolution of 1688 to the Reform Act 1832 the county parliamentary representatives were chosen effectively from only ten great families, mostly territorial magnates. The three most dominant of these were the Bampfyldes of Poltimore House and North Molton, the Courtenays of Powderham Castle, and the Rolles of Stevenstone and Bicton. [4] The Rolles were not from the mediaeval aristocracy as were the Courtenays, but were descended from an able lawyer and administrator of the Tudor era, as were the Russells, later Earls and Dukes of Bedford. Both Russells and Rolles acquired much former monastic land in Devon following the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Indeed, the Rolles were in the opinion of Hoskins (1954) "second only to the Russells in the extent of their monastic and other lands and in time were to surpass them". [5]
In 1669 Sir John Rolle (died 1706), KB of Stevenstone had an annual income of £6,000 making him "one of the richest gentlemen in the country". [6] He died in 1706 seized of more than 40 manors in Devon. [7]
The family built several different houses on the same site known as Stevenstone House, the last Victorian version of which was built between 1868 and 1872. It was significantly reduced in size soon after 1912 and then after 1931 it was gradually demolished piecemeal for building materials.
John Prince in his "Worthies of Devon" gives the descent of Stevenstone as follows, based on the work of the Devon topographer Tristram Risdon, himself born within the parish of St Giles, at Winscott House. The earliest recorded holder of the manor was Michael de Stephans, who granted it to Richard Basset, the father of Elias Basset, who granted it to Walter de la Lay, or Ley. His descendant John de Lay changed his name to John de Stephenston. The overlord who was then a later Elias Basset, lord of the manor of Beaupier in Wales, released all his interest in Stevenstone to John de Stevenstone.
He was followed by another John, Walter and John de Stephenston. The latter left a daughter Elizabeth de Stephenston his sole heiress, who brought the manor by marriage to her husband Grant of Westlegh, near Bideford. Grant was himself also lacking in male progeny and left two daughters joint heiresses, one of whom married Monk of Potheridge, whilst the other married a member of the Moyle family, who received Stevenstone as his wife's share of the inheritance. He made it his chief residence, and Prince suggests, on the basis of Tristram Risdon's assertion, that his descendant Sir Walter Moyle, a Justice of the King's Bench in 1454, was born here.
George Rolle (died 1552), MP, the founder of that family in Devon, purchased the estate not long before 1524. [9] He was probably born in Dorset, rose to prominence as a lawyer in London, and had as clients several monastic houses in Devon. One of his most prominent clients was Arthur Plantagenet, 1st Viscount Lisle (died 1542), whom he served as legal counsel until the latter's death. He served as MP for Barnstaple in 1542 and again in 1545. [10]
The male descendants up to 1842 of George Rolle included about twenty Members of Parliament.[ citation needed ] In 1842 died the last of the male line, John Rolle, 1st Baron Rolle (1750–1842), descended from George Rolle's second son George Rolle (died 1573) of the manor of Marrais in the parish of Week St Mary in Cornwall, which manor had been procured for him by his father who had obtained the wardship of Margaret of Marrais and bequeathed the same in his will to his son George, who became her husband.[ citation needed ]
The descendants of George Rolle the patriarch's eldest son John Rolle (died 1570) failed in the male line in 1642 on the death of the infant John Rolle (1638–1642). Stevenstone and several other manors which had by then been accumulated by purchase and inheritance from heiresses, passed eventually to Sir John Rolle (1626–1706), the grandson of George Rolle (died 1573) of Marrais. Some of the estates of the patriarch's fourth son Henry Rolle of Heanton Satchville, Petrockstowe, also reverted to the line of George Rolle of Marais on the failure in the male line in 1747 on the death of Samuel Rolle of Hudscott, Chittlehampton. [11]
The earliest record of the form of the manor house is that given by John Leland (died 1552), who wrote : "There is an hamlet longging to Tarington toun not a mile by est from Tarington coullid S. Gilys, wher George Rolles hath buildid a right fair house of bryke". It is said by Hoskins (1954) to have been the first brick-built house in Devon. [24] A letter survives dated 1539 from George Rolle to his illustrious client's wife Lady Lisle "from my poor house" of Stevenstone. [9]
Two Palladian outbuildings serving as Orangery and "Library Room" [25] were built next to the house by John Rolle (1679–1730), MP, and the Library shows above the keystone of its central arch the arms of Rolle impaling the arms of the Walter Baronets of Sarsden, Oxfordshire, the family of his wife Isabella Walter (died 1734). Hoskins states that the manor house itself was rebuilt or remodelled sometime in the 18th century, Pevsner states c. 1709, [26] perhaps therefore at the same time as the building of the outbuildings. An engraving of this Georgian house survives, by James Bingley, published in 1831.
The house was demolished in 1868 by Hon. Mark Rolle (died 1907) who erected in its place between 1868 and 1872 to the design of Charles Barry Jr. (died 1900) a Victorian mansion in the "French Chateau style" (or "Franco-Italian style" as it was termed by a contemporary issue of Building News, [27] ) widely considered today to have been a building of little architectural merit. It may be compared, but in simpler form, to the Rothschild family's slightly later Waddesdon Manor, which was however designed by a French architect.[ citation needed ] It sat within a deer park of 370 acres containing a large quantity of large and valuable trees. [28] In the opinion of Hoskins writing in 1954: "Mark Rolle rebuilt the house again in the worst style of the time. The richest man in Devon built himself the ugliest house". [9]
Following the death of Mark Rolle in 1907, the Rolle estates, extending to about 55,000 acres, which had been held by him as life tenant under the will of his aunt's husband John Rolle, 1st Baron Rolle (1750–1842), descended to his heir male his nephew Charles John Robert Hepburn-Stuart-Forbes-Trefusis, 21st Baron Clinton (1863–1957), of Huish
Lord Clinton sold Stevenstone by auction in 1912 to Captain John Oliver Clemson (1882–1915) and his wife Mary McKinnon, a wealthy heiress. [30] Clemson was born 30 May 1882 in Crumpsall, Manchester the elder son of John Henry Clemson (1856–1889) of Parkside, Altrincham, Cheshire by his wife Sara Jane Oliver (b. 1855). [31] [32] He had one brother and four sisters.
In 1891 aged 8 he was living with his widowed mother at Brookfield House, Bury Old Road, Broughton, Salford. He attended Windermere College Preparatory School, in the parish of St Mary's Church Applethwaite, Windermere, in which church his name appears on a memorial tablet "Boys of the Old College who fell in the Great War". He later attended Sedbergh School between 1897 and July 1900. In the 1901 census he was residing at Red House, Windermere, as a boarder in a preparatory school with three other pupils. He matriculated at Exeter College, Oxford in 1901. He described himself in about 1909 as a "Gentleman farmer of Peagham (Barton), Torrington", which was one of the farms of the Stevenstone estate, about 3/4 mile north of Stevenstone House. On 10 July 1909 he applied for a commission in the Royal North Devon Hussars, and was commissioned as Second Lieutenant on 17 July 1909.
In 1911, unmarried and aged 28, he was staying at Bydown House, Swimbridge, near Barnstaple, as a guest of Robert Jameson and his wife Margaret (née McKinnon), who was the brother-in-law of Mary McKinnon, also then residing in the house, aged 28 and born in Calcutta, Clemson's future wife. [33] In 1912 at Paddington, London, he married Mary McKinnon, 3rd daughter of the late John McKinnon of 10 Hyde Park Gardens, London. They had one daughter. The new owners demolished about half of the east front of the house including the main tower and one corner tower, to make it more manageable, presumably due to the war-time lack of domestic staff. He was Master of the Stevenstone Foxhounds.
Captain Clemson was mobilised on 4 August 1914 and sailed for Gallipoli on 24 September 1914, as part of the South Western Mounted Brigade, during which campaign he died from wounds on 9 December 1915. [34] He is remembered by a monument in St Giles' Church inscribed as follows: "In Loving Memory of John Oliver Clemson, of Stevenstone, Captain Royal North Devon Hussars, who was killed in action in Gallipoli 9th December 1915, aged 33. A great and glorious thing it is to die for one's country". He is recorded on the Exeter College, Oxford Roll of Honour, [34] and also on the Altrincham & District Roll of Honour. [33]
His widow Mary erected a bronze memorial tablet in the church naming the twelve men of the parish who had lost their lives in World War I, reported on in the local press thus: "Following the unveiling by Mrs. Clemson, and the dedication by the Vicar (Rev. C. Walker), the "Last Post" and Reveille were sounded on cornets, and the effect was grand in its solemnity. Special hymns and psalms were sung by the choir, and the Vicar based his address on the significance of the memorial". His grave is in the Lala Baba Cemetery in Turkey. [31] Mrs Clemson remarried to Col. B.C. James, 8th Devon Regiment, awarded the DSO on 1 January 1917, and remained at Stevenstone.
On 26 September 1930 the estate of Stevenstone was offered for sale by auction, including 665 acres. The property was auctioned again in May 1931, but with only 17 acres and was then described as comprising four reception rooms, 27 bed and dressing rooms and eight bathrooms. [35] It failed to sell at £3,000. A further 300 acres were sold separately.
In the summer of 1931 the house and some of the parkland was purchased by Mr George Millman, the tenant of Winscott Barton (the ancient home of Tristram Risdon), by then part of the Stevenstone estate, within the parish of St Giles. [36] He immediately offered it for sale as building materials prior to complete demolition, split into 609 lots. Lot 609 was the residual shell of the house itself after all else had been sold in the previous lots. Mr Millman however changed his intention against selling, but by then the auction could not be stopped. He bought-in as many lots as he could, and the house continued for a few more years, reduced in size again by the demolition of the servants' wing which connected the house to the stable block.
The house was still habitable during World War II as troops were stationed there, namely the Warwickshire Regiment and later American troops. After the war Mr Millman finally sold the house to Mr Melville, who contrary to his stated intention at the time of purchase, proceeded to demolish it. He used much of the stone to convert the stable block into terraced housing and built several smaller houses and bungalows around it and in the former walled kitchen garden.
In 1970 the vestigial ruins of Stevenstone House were purchased by Mr Parnell, who had purchased the Deer Park in the 1931 sale and had built a bungalow next to the ruins. Although the adjacent detached Library Room and the Orangery were granted Grade II* Listing on 4 October 1960, the ruins of Stevenstone House received much later on 16 February 1989 a Grade II Listing, offering them protection from demolition, but they have continued to deteriorate from adverse weather and are as at 2012 totally covered in ivy.
Around the ruined house exists in 2012 a hamlet of settlement, comprising the terraced houses of the former stable block, several bungalows within the walled kitchen garden, other new houses and the Torrington Farmers Hunt Kennels, previously the Stevenstone Hunt in the days of Mark Rolle. The Palladian outbuildings of the Library Room and the Orangery were purchased in July 1978 by the Landmark Trust and were restored and converted into revenue-producing rental accommodation.
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.
St Giles in the Wood is a village and civil parish in the Torridge district of Devon, England. The village lies about 2.5 miles east of the town of Great Torrington, and the parish, which had a population of 566 in 2001 compared with 623 in 1901, is surrounded clockwise from the north by the parishes of Huntshaw, Yarnscombe, High Bickington, Roborough, Beaford, Little Torrington and Great Torrington. Most of the Victorian terraced cottages in the village, on the east side of the church, were built by the Rolle Estate.
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.
Sir John Rolle, KB, of Stevenstone, Devon, was an English landowner, Sheriff of Devon in 1682 and MP for Barnstaple (1660) and for Devon (1661–1679). The Travel Journal of Cosimo III de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany (1642-1723) states of him: "This gentleman is one of the richest in the country, having an estate of six thousand pounds sterling per annum, besides a considerable property in ready money".
Sir Hugh Pollard lord of the manor of King's Nympton in Devon, was Sheriff of Devon in 1535/6 and in 1545 was appointed Recorder of Barnstaple in Devon.
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.
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.
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, who by 1842 had become the largest landowners in Devon with about 55,000 acres 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. 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.
John Rolle (1522–1570) of Stevenstone, in the parish of St Giles in the Wood, near Great Torrington, Devon, was the eldest son and heir of George Rolle, MP, founder of the great Rolle family of Stevenstone, by his second wife Eleanor Dacres. Three monuments survive in memory of his immediate family in the churches of St Giles in the Wood and Chittlehampton.
Denys Rolle (1614–1638) of Bicton and Stevenstone in Devon was Sheriff of Devon in 1636. He was one of the biographer John Prince's Worthies of Devon.
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.
John Rolle (1679–1730) of Stevenstone and Bicton in Devon, was a British landowner and Tory politician who sat in the English House of Commons from 1703 to 1705 and in the British House of Commons from 1710 to 1730. He declined the offer of an earldom by Queen Anne, but 18 years after his death his eldest son was raised to the peerage in 1748 by King George II as Baron Rolle.
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.
The estate of Acland in the parish of Landkey, near Barnstaple in North Devon, England, was from 1155 the earliest known seat of the influential and wealthy family of Acland, to which it gave the surname de Acland. It is situated about 3/4 mile north-east of the village of Landkey, from which it is now cut off by the busy A361 North Devon Link Road.
The large parish church of St Giles, which is in the village of St Giles in the Wood, Devon, England, came into being in 1309. When it was restored in 1862–3, many monuments were retained, including the monument and effigy of Thomas Chafe of Dodscott, three monumental brasses, of Alenora Pollard, Margaret Rolle of Stevenstone and a small brass of her husband John Rolle (d.1570). There are also 19th- and 20th-century monuments to the Rolle family.
William Rolle was Member of Parliament for Callington in Cornwall in 1604 and 1614.
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.
Hugh Fortescue, 1st Earl Clinton was an English peer and landowner. He built the Palladian English country house of Castle Hill, which survives to this day.