eBook
Available on Compatible NOOK devices, the free NOOK App and in My Digital Library.
Related collections and offers
Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781841509372 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Intellect Books |
| Publication date: | 04/01/2005 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 115 |
| File size: | 10 MB |
Read an Excerpt
A Devon House
The Story of Poltimore
By Jocelyn Hemming, Peter Howard
University of Plymouth Press
Copyright © 2005 Poltimore HouseTrustAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-84150-937-2
CHAPTER 1
Invaders, a Kidnapping and a Charitable Deed: 100 BC–AD 1600
A few miles north of Exeter on the level land between the rivers Exe and Clyst a large, white-stuccoed house stands four-square and solid against a background of dark trees. 'A plain mansion in a dull park' is how W.G. Hoskins described it in his book Devon, although Nikolaus Pevsner and Bridget Cherry in The Buildings of England wrote a great deal more enthusiastically; and Simon Jenkins in his magisterial England's Thousand Best Houses includes it, considering its ruinous state, 'out of expectation'. Admittedly, at first sight, seen briefly by those speeding along the M5 motorway a few hundred yards away, the long, regular line of unadorned windows, and heavy porch give no hint of what might lie behind the façade, or any inkling of Poltimore's colourful history. The parkland in front was once more thickly wooded, with fine spreading oaks and a roaming herd of fallow deer, one of only a few in Devon. Now the deer have gone and the park is sadly thinned, but across the lawns east of the house the celebrated avenue of lime trees still marks the path to the church and village of Poltimore.
For over six centuries the Bampfylde family lived at Poltimore, and every hundred years or so successive generations pulled down and rebuilt or extended the mansion and modernised their estate. The result is a complex architectural jigsaw, some elements of which remain unresolved today. When the Bampfyldes left in 1921 the house, by then considered too big for private use, became first a school and then a hospital until, after a series of unfortunate ownerships, it suffered the chaos resulting from repossession, arson, vandalism, theft and chronic neglect before its rescue in 1996.
To go back to the beginning, Devon (and Cornwall) were occupied in the late Iron Age by the Dumnonii, a Celtic tribe, whose name was used by the Romans when they founded the city of Exeter and called it Isca Dumnoniorum. Roman coins were dug up in a potato field in Poltimore parish in 1838, but signs of Roman occupation in the area are few, although it is fairly established that they took over the Iron Age fort on Stoke Hill and may have had an outpost a few miles away at Killerton. Six centuries then passed before the Saxons arrived in this part of England, after which a relative peace descended until the Viking invasions began in AD 871. Devon was constantly raided, and in 1001 the Saxons fought (and lost) against the Danes in a battle at Pinhoe. Broadclyst and neighbouring villages, including Poltimore, were probably sacked. There is no archaeological evidence for this event but the names of Danes Hill and Dandy Lane, both near Poltimore, reinforce the tradition. It thus remained for the Norman invaders later to set some sort of stamp on the ownership and use of the land. In the Domesday Survey two manors were recorded at Poltimore, the main one held by Haemeric de Arcis, an officer in the army of William I, and a smaller one, Cutton (a farm today), between Poltimore and Killerton, which belonged to the Canons of St Mary at Rouen.
The name Poltimore itself may derive from a Celtic root — in Old Welsh, Pwll-ty-mawr (Pwyll , pool; Ty, house; and Mawr, great) or 'the Pool by the Great House'. The de Pultymor family, probably of Norman descent, who owned the manor of Poltimore in the 13th century also held land at a place called Poltimore in Glamorgan, although it is not known whether they took their name from the Devon or the Welsh lands.
Nothing exists today to show a Norman presence in Poltimore village except the font in the church of St Mary, a red sandstone building erected by the Bampfyldes in the 14th century that may have replaced an earlier one on the site. The first record relating to Poltimore after Domesday is in the Devon Assize Rolls of 1218–19 where Stephen de Pultymor put in a claim against Roger de Lymburg (Lymbury, in Broadclyst parish, known today as Reed's Cottages) for causing an annoyance to his tenants by diverting a stream. Stephen's heirs retained the manor until 1293. It was then given to Simon de Montacute who very soon disposed of it to William Pontyngton, a Canon of Exeter Cathedral. The new owner did not hold the estate for long and in 1298 bequeathed it to his pupil John Bampfylde, of Weston (now Weston Bampfylde) in Dorset.
John, the first Bampfylde to own the land at Poltimore, was himself the son of a John Bampfylde, and his successors were John, Thomas, John, Thomas, John and John, followed by William, Walter and William and then Edward. During this long period from 1298 the family acquired other lands by marriage to the St Maurs at North Molton in Devon and the Pedertons of Hardington in Somerset, and thereby gained a certain position in the county. In 1324 in the reign of Edward II, John de Bamfield of Poltimore is recorded in Palgrave's Parliamentary Writs as one of the 'men at arms' liable for military service against the Scots, while a later John Bampfylde in the 15th century was made Crown Escheator for Devon and Cornwall. Given their status in Devon during this time it is likely that the Bampfyldes lived at Poltimore, although there is today no trace of any medieval house built by them on the site of the present mansion. However, 'Town orchard' is recorded on the tithe map of 1841 on the high ground near the church and next to the oldest house in the village ABOVE (formerly Cross Cottage, now Towan House). This may have been the demesne farm of the lord of the manor where the Bampfyldes lived for the first two and a half centuries after they inherited the Poltimore estate. Their house may even be the dwelling shown on Saxton's Map of 1575, when Poltimore was first recorded as a fenced deer park.
However, on the death of Edward Bampfylde in 1528, the whole estate was very nearly lost. Edward's two-year-old son Richard, heir to both the Poltimore and North Molton lands, was supposedly kidnapped and taken out of Devon, leaving the properties in the hands of trustees who quarrelled violently about their shares in the estate. One version of this rather romantic story is that the child was brought up as his kidnapper's servant and huntsman, but rescued by a former Poltimore tenant who overheard two of the trustees arguing and admitting the existence of a rightful heir, and was able to prove the boy's true identity by the presence of an unusual birthmark. He was brought back to Somerset to live at Brympton with the Sydenham family, one of whose daughters he eventually married. Another similar story, but involving twin boys, was told in 1829 by the Revd. Richard Bampfylde, Rector of Poltimore, who then lived at Poltimore House. There was a painting in the house of a man in hunting dress with hawk and hound, named 'Dick the Hunter', an ancestor, and the younger of twin orphaned sons, both of whom were said to have died and been buried at Poltimore. In true fairy-story vein the plot unfolds — wicked trustees, the exhumation of the two little coffins, and the discovery of a skeleton in one and sawdust and stones in the other. To complete the extraordinary tale, the children's nurse was traced who remembered that one twin did indeed have a distinguishing birthmark. Eventually Richard Bampfylde, by this time a young man, was run to ground in Yorkshire, living in a gamekeeper's hut. He came back to his inheritance in 1550 (when he is named as patron of Huxham church) but is said to have lived modestly in a cottage on the estate; could this be the demesne house near the church? Did he live here in the village while he was building what is today the oldest part of Poltimore House? He is recorded in the parish-muster roll in 1569 as 'Esquire' and a Giles Bampfylde as 'Gentleman', the only two light horsemen in the parish.
Whatever the truth of the kidnapping story, the oldest surviving part, that is the north-west and north-east facing gabled fronts, certainly dates from the second half of the 16th century. Although there is no evidence of this today, it is possible that the early house was more than L-shaped, possibly U-shaped, if not quadrilateral, a view borne out by the 1716 drawing by the topographical artist, Edmund Prideaux, showing a finial on the roofline on the west side matching those on the east front. If the fourth side were also gabled and the courtyard enclosed, the rebuilding of the south front in the early 18th century would have obliterated this part of the Tudor house. The plan would also have been consistent with the size of the Bampfylde estate and the status of the owner. Being appointed Sheriff of Devon in 1576 it is inconceivable that Richard Bampfylde was not then living in his new house, and that it was of suitable proportions as befitted his rank. He died in 1594, and in his will commends to his son Amyas in quite possessive terms all the hangings, furniture, fittings and bedding 'in my Chamber and Chambers within my howsse of Poltimore there nowe called or knowne by the name or names of the Parlor Chamber the Sollar Chamber the hall Chamber and the Chamber over the Kitchen', thus confirming the existence of a substantial building by this date. Inside, the domestic arrangement was more advanced than what would be expected in the middle of the 16th century, with the kitchens adjacent to the parlour, instead of being at the opposite end of the hall. The staircase wound up through a tower built into the right angle of the L-shaped structure formed by the two gabled wings that remain today. The main entrance was through a wide archway on the north side and this led, to the left, into the great hall of the house (now the Saloon) on the east range. The great hall was not open to the roof, as was still common in large houses in the 16th century, but had a higher ceiling than the adjacent parlour and may have been enriched with decorative plasterwork of the period or heavily moulded beams — all of which was replaced in the mid-18th century by the rococo decoration seen today. Surviving 16th-century features — stone-mullioned windows, original Beerstone chimneypieces and remnants of fine carving — show that the house was of superior construction, advanced design and finished to a very high standard when compared with houses of equivalent status in the South West. Carpenters' marks and other symbols that are often found in English building from the medieval period onwards have been discovered in the roof timbers of the north front. One seal-like mark represents a six-petal symbol, a mark of religious or occult significance, possibly intended to protect the fabric of the house.
How carefully this ground was first surveyed by Richard Bampfylde's builders is not known, but they certainly chose well, if not fortuitously, as the house has never been liable to flooding, whereas the park, grounds and stable block, situated at a lower level and on alluvial soil, have suffered in this respect from time to time. Construction was mostly of local red sandstone with dressings of cream-coloured Beerstone and the occasional use of purple volcanic stone from the neighbourhood in the coigns — in other words perhaps 'a show of polychrome masonry' as was popular in south-west England in the 16th and early 17th centuries. The original roof was of pegged slates from the South Hams, laid in diminishing courses. The whole appearance must have been stunning, and quite different from the bland effect produced by the rendering in stucco, which was done at a later date.
Having failed to oust Richard from his Poltimore estate, the trustees continued to quarrel over the North Molton property. In 1577 there was a suit between St Maur, Zouche and Cantilupe on the one side and Stowell, John Fortescue and Richard Bampfylde on the other. Both Zouche and Cantilupe were landowners in the Midlands and Yorkshire, so may well have been related to two of the 'villainous trustees' involved in the kidnapping, said to have come from the north of England. Their attempts to keep the North Molton lands were finally defeated by Richard's son, Amyas Bampfylde (1551-1625) who inherited the Poltimore and North Molton properties on his father's death in 1594.
Amyas Bampfylde built both Bampfylde House in Exeter and the house on his North Molton estate where he seems mainly to have lived instead of at Poltimore. In Bampfylde House there was once a massive oak chimneypiece featuring King Charles I mounted on a charger and flanked by the figures of Peace and Plenty with two grotesque statues of a Cavalier and a Puritan on the outsides. Jenkins, in his History of Exeter, states that Sir Amyas Bampfylde had placed it there soon after the Restoration. This is incorrect, as Amyas died in 1625, so it is more likely that it was the work of Sir Coplestone Bampfylde, 2nd Baronet, another ardent Royalist, who may also have had the plaster panel with the Stuart arms, together with the letters C R and the date 1666, placed in the house in Poltimore village already mentioned (The Towan House). The chimneypiece was removed from Bampfylde House at some time in the 19th century and until 1921 adorned the main staircase in Poltimore House. It was taken to North Molton by Lord Poltimore in that year, a move which saved it from destruction when Bampfylde House suffered bomb damage in the Exeter air raids of 1942 and was subsequently demolished.
The loss of Bampfylde House meant also the loss of fine plasterwork ceilings very similar to ones at Poltimore. This type of plasterwork in Devon was known in particular from the 16th to the 18th centuries through the work of several generations of the Abbott family of Frithelstock in North Devon. Plasterwork of this quality and decoration by the Abbotts can be seen at Forde House, Newton Abbot (1610) and The Grange, Broadhembury (1603) while Bampfylde House itself is known to have been 'improved' in the early 17th century. In spite of his other interests, therefore, Amyas Bampfylde may have contributed to some of the post-1600 plasterwork decoration at his ancestral house, especially that of the dining room and the rooms above. The design in the former was of double-moulded ribs arranged in geometrical patterns of squares and decorated with sprays of pomegranates and marigolds or cornflowers. In the centre of the squares were various decorative features, the fleur-de-lys, shells, a cluster of oak leaves and acorns, a dog jumping through leaves after a squirrel, and other animals. In the room above was a simpler ceiling, with double-moulded ribs, here enriched with grape-vine tendrils and sprays of flowers at angles identical to those below. The walls of this room had linenfold panelling but that was removed many years ago; reportedly to a museum in California, although it has never been traced. Sadly, both these fine ceilings were allowed to disintegrate in the 1970s.
Richard Bampfylde is commemorated by a typical Tudor monument in St Mary's church, comprising the recumbent figures of himself and his wife Elizabeth Sydenham. Above the monument lie the fragments of a stone plaque which was originally set over the back door of a row of four village almshouses built in 1631 by Richard's grandson, John Bampfylde, father of John, 1st Baronet. Carved in the stone are the heads of John Bampfylde's wife, Elizabeth Drake, and their son Amyas, both of whom died in 1629, together with four smaller heads, presumably of their remaining children. In memory of his wife and son John Bampfylde gave money and land adjoining Poltimore churchyard and in Pinhoe to provide four dwellings and relief for the poor of Poltimore and Huxham. If the two last parishes had no deserving poor, the parishes of Pinhoe and Broadclyst should benefit; furthermore if the revenues were not enough to support those chosen in Huxham, Pinhoe and Broadclyst, these parishes should supply the wherewithal so that Poltimore should not be charged. This charitable deed is commemorated by a charming inscription on the plaque
Grudge not my laurell
Rather blesse that bower
Which made the death of two
The life of fower.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from A Devon House by Jocelyn Hemming, Peter Howard. Copyright © 2005 Poltimore HouseTrust. Excerpted by permission of University of Plymouth Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Foreword,Family Tree,
Poltimore Plan,
Introduction,
Invaders, a Kidnapping and a Charitable Deed: 100 BC–AD 1600,
Royalist to Parliamentarian: Conflict and a Hard-won Treaty,
The Bampfylde Builders: from the 17th to the 20th Century,
The Pleasures that go with Learning: 1923–1945,
The Poltimore Hospitals: 1945–1975,
Two Decades of Disaster: 1976–1997,
The Millennium and Beyond,
Acknowledgements,