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| Bampfylde of Poltimore, Barons Poltimore |
Sir William Bampfield (d. by 1475), was succeeded by his son Walter (d. 1478), and the latter apparently by his brother William or William's son, Sir Edward Bampfield (d. 1528). William was responsible for a further enhancement of the family fortunes through his marriage to Margaret St. Maur, which brought him her patrimony at North Molton (Devon). Sir Edward's heir to Poltimore and North Molton was his son, Richard Bampfield (c.1526-94), with whom the genealogy below begins. Richard was barely two years old when his father died, and a story current in the 18th century says that after his mother died the estate passed into the hands of trustees who quarrelled over the estate. One of them kidnapped the heir and brought him up in his household as a page, concealed his rank and property from him, and when he reached maturity employed him as a groom. It is said that this dastardly scheme to dispossess the rightful heir was foiled by a former Poltimore tenant who overheard two of the trustees admit the existence of an heir, went in search of him, convinced him of his identity, and helped him recover his property. I doubt there is much, if any, truth in this story, but it is likely enough that Richard was raised as a page in the household of one of his trustees, as this would have been typical of the education of a knight's son at the time.
It seems to have been Richard Bampfield who built the earliest part of the present house at Poltimore, replacing the manor house of his ancestors, which probably stood on a different site, close to the parish church and the village. His eldest son drowned during a voyage to Ireland in his father's lifetime, so Richard was succeeded by his second son, Sir Amyas Bampfield (c.1559-1626), who served as one of the county's MPs in the late 1590s, was knighted in 1603 and served as High Sheriff in 1604. Although he inherited Poltimore from his father, Sir Amyas built himself a new house, Court Hall, on his property at North Molton, and seems to have preferred it to Poltimore. He had a large family, and in 1602 he agreed a deal with Thomas Drake of Buckland (brother of the famous admiral, Sir Francis Drake) whereby Thomas' son would marry one of Sir Amyas' daughters, and Sir Amyas' eldest son, John Bampfield (c.1586-1657) would marry one of Thomas' daughters. The marriages took place in a double ceremony at Buckland Monarchorum in 1602 when all the parties were still children, so neither couple actually began their married life together until several years afterwards. Having made an early start on matrimony, however, John and his wife Elizabeth had time to produce fifteen children (eight sons and seven daughters), about some of whom very little is known.
John Bampfield (c.1586-1657) was very active in Devon local government, serving as MP and High Sheriff, and acting as a JP and Deputy Lieutenant and on many local commissions. By 1639, like so many others, he appears to have lost patience with the personal rule and policies of King Charles I, and when the Civil War began he joined his eldest surviving son, Sir John Bampfield (c.1610-50) in supporting the Parliamentarian side, although his support seems always to have been rather hesitant. Sir John, although raised to a baronetcy by Charles I in 1641 - presumably in an unsuccessful bid to secure his loyalty - was indeed among the leaders of the Parliamentarian faction in Devon during the early part of the war. By 1645, however, his enthusiasm seems to have cooled, and since he lost his seat as an MP during Pride's Purge in 1648 it would seem he was no longer trusted by the hard-liners. Sir John married in 1637 the heiress of Warleigh House near Plymouth, which became his seat. He died young in 1650, leaving as his heir Sir Coplestone Bampfylde (c.1638-92), 2nd bt., who was brought up at Warleigh but inherited Poltimore House and Court Hall, North Molton from his grandfather in 1657, shortly before he came of age. Sir Coplestone was, in sharp distinction to his father and grandfather, a Royalist, and his agitation against the last years of the Commonwealth regime brought an immediate reward on the Restoration of King Charles II with his appointment as High Sheriff, Deputy Lieutenant, and Colonel of the Devon militia. He was a tall, well-built man and apparently every inch the popular image of the Cavalier, with his fondness for drinking, elaborate retinue, and open-handed generosity. He also made the first alterations we can identify to Richard Bampfield's house at Poltimore, beginning a long sequences of changes by every generation of the family down to the early 20th century. His lifestyle may well also have begun the accumulation of debt, which eventually crippled the economy of the estate and led to its break-up in the 1920s.
Sir Coplestone had two sons, of whom the younger - a precocious child scholar - died at the age of ten. The elder, Col. Hugh Bampfield (1663?-91), who lived at Warleigh House after coming of age, died as a result of riding accident a few months before his father, and he in turn left two infant sons. The elder of these, Sir Coplestone Warwick Bampfylde (c.1689-1727), 3rd bt., succeeded his grandfather in his estates at Poltimore and Court Hall, and in 1695 he also came into the property of the Hardington (Somerset) branch of the family on the death of Col. Warwick Bampfield. The younger son, John Bampfylde (1690-1750), inherited Warleigh (which he sold in 1742), but secured a richer prize when he married the heiress of the Warres of Hestercombe (Somerset) in 1718. His descendants are considered further below.
Sir C.W. Bampfylde shared, to an extreme, the political views of his grandfather, and although (or perhaps because) he was an MP, was briefly locked up as an active Jacobite during the 1715 rebellion. He died relatively young, well before the 1745 rebellion, and his son, Sir Richard Warwick Bampfylde (1722-76), 4th bt., although still a Tory, seems to have been somewhat more moderate in his views. He continued the family tradition of representing Devon in Parliament, sitting as one of its MPs from 1747 until his death, without once having to fight a contested election. This must have pleased him, since he was apparently something of a miser, known as 'Tenpenny Dick' from his desire to drive down agricultural day wages to that level. He was succeeded by his eldest surviving son, Sir Charles Warwick Bampfylde (1753-1823), 5th bt., who was sent on a Grand Tour of Europe as a young man, and who married and came into his inheritance soon afterwards. Perhaps European travel gave him a taste for the finer things in life, or perhaps he simply reacted against the pennywise ways of his father, but a few years of riotous living and election expenses brought him 'face to face with ruin', and he and his wife were obliged to retire to a small house in rural Wales where they could live cheaply and avoid exposure to the temptations offered by London or even Exeter. He remained an MP, however, until 1790, prioritising this over other expenditure because of the protection it afforded him from arrest for debt, but incurring election expenses totalling some £80,000 across his career which must have made his financial situation much worse in the long run. In 1790, by which time he had separated from his wife, he was defeated in a contest at Exeter, and fearing imminent arrest he was obliged to skulk in the houses of friends in London while trying to engineer a pension or a post which would make his position more secure. He could not even flee abroad, as so many debtors did, apparently because he had continental creditors as well. After six years, he again secured election to Parliament, and his financial position slowly eased thereafter, although it is not quite clear why; perhaps the habit of economy finally made a difference. His wife brought him only one child, a son, before leaving him, and he seems to have sought solace in the arms of a succession of mistresses. The result was a string of illegitimate children, of whom three survived at the time of his death and were acknowledged and provided for in his will. His natural son, the Rev. Charles Francis Bampfylde, became a clergyman, and was bequeathed for life the Hardington estate in Somerset, where he was rector, although he actually lived at Dunkerton in west Somerset, where he was also the minister. He is said not to have employed a curate, but to have ridden across the county to deliver the minimum number of services required at Hardington to justify his stipend. He was the last member of the family to own the Hardington estate, parts of which were sold in 1842, and the rest of which was realised by the Poltimore branch of the family in 1859.
Sir Charles Warwick Bampfylde's life remained dramatic to its end, for on 7 April 1823 he was shot by the husband of his housekeeper, one Joseph Morland, who apparently believed the 70-year old baronet was having a sexual liaison with his wife and had conspired with her to have him imprisoned for an alleged assault. Morland at once committed suicide after shooting Sir Charles, but his victim lingered on for a fortnight, finally dying of gangrene, which a post mortem suggested had been occasioned by the shot carrying a fragment of his braces into his body. When Lady Bampfylde heard of the shooting, she at once returned to his side to nurse him, and they were evidently reconciled before his death, as when she died in 1832, she chose to be buried with him.
Sir Charles' only legitimate son, and his successor at Poltimore and Court Hall, was Sir George Warwick Bampfylde (1786-1858), 6th bt. Unlike his predecessors, he was a Whig in politics, but he could not afford to stand for Parliament even after he succeeded to the baronetcy and estates. That did not stop him being active in the cause of parliamentary reform in other ways, however, and he obviously made himself sufficiently useful to the Whig leadership to be given a peerage (as 1st Baron Poltimore) in 1831, when Lord Grey's government created a number of new peers of liberal views in a bid to ensure that the Reform Bill passed the House of Lords. Ennoblement did not lead on to a career in government, however, apart from a brief period as a Government whip in the Lords in 1840-41, and the 1st Baron seems to have lived quietly on his estates until his death in 1858. Unlike almost all his predecessors, he did not have a large family, and his successor was his only son, Augustus (1837-1908), 2nd Baron Poltimore. Although there is no suggestion that he was anymore of a spendthrift than his father, he was much more active politically. He began as a Liberal like his father, and was made a privy councillor and Treasurer of the Royal Household by Gladstone in 1872, serving for two years until the Liberal government fell. However, by 1880, if not before, his views had changed, and he sat on the Conservative benches in Lords and became Chairman of the Primrose League. He was perhaps, more interested in politics than in estate management or farming, and his expenditure did not take account of the fact that his income from the estate was falling steadily through the years of the Agricultural Depression, or of the trend in fiscal legislation under successive Liberal administrations. His son and successor, Coplestone (1859-1918), 3rd Baron Poltimore, therefore inherited an estate which although still large (the 2nd baron owned nearly 20,000 acres in 1883) had lacked investment over a long period and was burdened by heavy mortgages. The 3rd baron was interested in farming and presumably had some business acumen, as he worked in the finance sector for a number of years before inheriting. He had also married a daughter of the rich banker, Wentworth Blackett Beaumont, 1st Baron Allendale, and the money she brought him encouraged him to modernise and extend both Poltimore House and Court Hall. Prioritising the houses over the estate for investment was a mistake, however, for the First World War diverted attention to emergency food production, and the 3rd Baron's declining health and early death landed the estate with two lots of death duties within ten years. The estate passed to George Wentworth Warwick Bampfylde (1882-1965), 4th Baron Poltimore, whose advisers quickly made it clear to him that only the sale of a major part of the estates could prevent bankruptcy. In the years immediately after the First World War, of course, many others were in the same position: prices were low and many country houses could not be sold at all and were demolished. He broke the entail on the estate and managed to sell much of the land around Poltimore to the tenant farmers in 1920-21. He could not find a buyer for the house and its grounds, but he did manage to find a school to take the house on a tenancy basis. Lord Poltimore retreated to North Molton, where he could enjoy the hunting on Exmoor which his chief passion in life. When a Labour government was elected in 1945, however, he seems to have decided that landownership was finished, and he promptly handed over what was left of his property at North Molton to his daughter, Lady Stucley and emigrated to Rhodesia, never returning to the UK again. Lady Stucley, whose husband owned the Hartland Abbey estate, let Court Hall to a residential nursery school until the 1960s, and demolished it when its physical condition became apparent after they moved out. Only one wing was retained, which later became the core of a new house built for her daughter and her husband, who continue to own a much reduced estate at North Molton. The house and grounds at Poltimore were vacated by the school tenants at the end of the Second World War and were then sold to a timber merchant, who clear-felled the park trees before selling the house on for use as a hospital. The house became derelict in the 1980s but is now in the hands of a trust dedicated to its restoration, although progress has been painfully slow.
The 4th Baron was succeeded in the peerage by his younger brothers Arthur (1883-1967), 5th Baron Poltimore and Hugh (1888-1978), 6th Baron Poltimore. Arthur had emigrated to Kenya in 1935, but Hugh remained in the UK, farming on the Wiltshire/Gloucestershire border at Sherston, and later moving to Peasenhall (Suffk). When he died in 1978 he was succeeded by his grandson, Mark (b. 1957), the 7th and present Baron, who has made a career as a picture dealer with Christies and later Sothebys, and who is familiar to many from appearances over many years on the Antiques Roadshow.
John Bampfylde (1690-1750), who inherited Warleigh House from his father and Hestercombe House (Somerset) from his wife's family, probably shared the Jacobite sympathies of his brother, and was in Parliament in 1715-22 and again in 1736-41. He sold Warleigh House and concentrated his energies on Hestercombe, where he carried out a radical remodelling of the old house c.1730-32. He was succeeded by his only surviving son, the wonderfully named Coplestone Warre Bampfylde (1720-91), whose somewhat vacant appearance in portraits belied considerable aesthetic sensibility and artistic talent. Had he been born into another walk of life it seems probable that he would have become a professional artist or landscape gardener, but he remained a gentleman amateur in both these arts. At Hestercombe he created a Rococo landscape in the valley north of the house, and he also provided advice and assistance to his friends at Stourhead and Halswell. Many of his paintings are of these landscapes which he knew well, although he also painted portraits and general landscape views. He even turned his hand to architecture, and provided designs for a new Palladian house at Wardour Castle, as well as an executed scheme for a new market house in Taunton. He married the daughter of a Worcestershire ironmaster, but although the union was evidently happy, they had no children, and it seems possible that his sexual orientation was essentially gay.
As a result, when he died in 1791, Bampfylde was succeeded by his sister's son, John Tyndale (1757-1819), who was obliged to take the surname Warre as a condition of his inheritance. Although there seems little evidence that he was personally extravagant, he had a brother who seems to have been addicted to gambling, and for whose debts he made himself responsible time and again. As a result when died, he had over 100 creditors, to whom a total of more than £40,000 was owed. These debts devolved on his daughter and heiress, Elizabeth Maria Tyndale Warre (1790-1872), who resolved never to marry. Since she would therefore leave no heir, she sold a reversionary interest in the Hestercombe estate to the banker, Alexander Baring (1st Baron Ashburton) in 1822 for £24,000, and set herself by frugal living to clear the remainder of the debts, which she achieved. She is said to have been beautiful as a young woman, and she certainly received offers of marriage. One of her admirers even offered to repurchase the reversionary interest in the estate if she would marry him, but the offer was gently rejected. The habit of parsimony had become so deeply engrained that she continued to accumulate money long after clearing her father's debts, and some £14,000 of coin was found in hiding places around the house after her death. In her later years she became increasingly eccentric, although she remained a generous employer and was noted for her charity to the poor. When she died in 1872, the reversionary agreement took effect, and the estate passed to the 4th Baron Ashburton, who sold it later the same year to Lord Portman, by whom the house was unhappily again remodelled.
Poltimore House, Devon
The Poltimore estate was acquired by John Bampfylde from his former tutor, William Poyntington, a canon of Exeter Cathedral, in 1298, and it remained in the possession of his descendants for over 600 years. Although the family were clearly resident at Poltimore in the 15th century, there seems to be little evidence of exactly their house stood at this time. It may have been on the present site, or close to the parish church, or on a site west of the present house, but none of these have produced convincing evidence of occupation at this period. In the mid 16th century, Richard Bampfylde (d. 1594) erected the core of the present house in local red sandstone and volcanic rock, with Beer stone dressings; the roof timbers have been dendro-dated to 1559. It was either L-shaped or conformed to the classic manor house plan of a hall range with two cross-wings. The entrance was on the north side, the great hall to the east, and a staircase turret stood in the angle between the hall and cross-range. The north and east fronts were crowned with a regular row of gables, and those on the north side survive today.
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| Poltimore House: the north front of the Tudor house, as drawn by Edmund Prideaux before 1716. |
Over the centuries, the house seems to have been enlarged and remodelled by each succeeding generation of the family. The first changes we can identify were made by Sir Coplestone Bampfylde (d. 1691), 2nd bt., who created new chimneystacks and fireplaces so that more rooms could be heated, panelled some of the rooms, installed decorative plaster ceilings in the dining room and on the first floor, and replaced the Tudor spiral staircase with an oak dog-leg one. The granite gatepiers dated 1681 which survive at several entrances to the estate may have been part of the same campaign.
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| Poltimore House: Edmund Prideaux's drawing of the new south front, made about 1726. |
In 1691, Sir Coplestone Bampfylde died, and the estate passed to his infant grandson, Sir Coplestone Warwick Bampfylde (c.1689-1727), 3rd bt. He came of age in 1710, and his contribution to the development of the house was a new eleven bay south front, built in 1726-28 to the designs of the Exeter builder, John Moyle, with a panelled parapet and strips of French quoins marking the ends and separating the three-bay centre from the four-bay wings. His son, Sir Richard Warwick Bampfylde (c.1722-76), 4th bt., came of age in about 1743 and turned the old Tudor great hall into a richly decorated saloon with Rococo plasterwork, which looks as though it might date from the 1750s. When Sir Charles Warwick Bampfylde (1753-1823) inherited in 1776 he remodelled the red drawing room at the north-east corner of the house in the Adam style. His architect was probably John Johnson, the Essex-based designer who remodelled his London house in 1775 and who worked at nearby Killerton in 1779.
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| Poltimore House: the house from the south-west in c.1900, before the addition of the ballroom. |
Next came Sir George Bampfylde (1786-1858), 6th bt. and later 1st Baron Poltimore. In 1831 he undertook a further remodelling, adding a new west range to the house, a classical porch on the south front, and a new parapet on the west, south and east sides. His west range completed the enclosure of a courtyard, which he roofed over and filled with a vast imperial staircase. Augustus Bampfylde (1837-1908), the 2nd Baron, brought in Benjamin Ferrey, who added new service wings to the north of the house. In 1908, the year he inherited, Coplestone Bampfylde (1859-1918), the 3rd Baron, replaced the semi-circular portico and loggia of 1831 on the west front with a new wing housing a large drawing room (later converted into a ballroom), a study and morning room, with a boudoir and further bedrooms on the first floor, and also further expanded the service accommodation. He also introduced electric lighting and mains water into the house. This last addition made Poltimore very large indeed, and arguably too big to survive the 20th century.
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| Poltimore House: the house from the south-west after the addition of the ballroom wing in 1908. |
Two sets of death duties in ten years obliged George Bampfylde (1882-1965), the 4th Baron, to sell a large part of the estate and the house, but although he managed to sell the land he could not find a buyer for the house. He therefore let it as a girls' school (known as Poltimore College), and when this closed in 1939, to Dover College for Boys. They left at the end of the Second World War, and Lord Poltimore then sold the house and 112 acres to a local timber merchant who cut down the trees for timber before selling the house on to an aspiring hotelier. His plans never came to fruition, however, and the house was instead bought by Dr Richard Fortescue-Foulkes, who turned it into a hospital. It remained a private institution, outside the National Health Service, until 1963, but it was then brought under state control as a maternity unit. Several damaging alterations were made during its years as a hospital, including the removal of most of the balustraded parapet and chimneystacks, the glazing of the porch, and the installation of a passenger lift in the entrance hall. In 1975 the Health Authority sold the house with just 13 acres and it became a convalescent home, which closed in 1986.
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| Poltimore House in derelict condition, before the commencement of restoration in 2005. Image: Simpson & Brown |
Shortly afterwards the house was the subject of an arson attack which gutted the west wing. The house remained unoccupied and the subject of continuous vandalism and theft until in 2000 it was vested in a charitable trust dedicated to its restoration and future use. By 2005, the house had been encased in scaffolding and covered with a temporary roof, and in 2009 the Trust secured £500,000 of English Heritage funding to begin serious restoration under the guidance of Simpson & Brown of Edinburgh. Restoration remains a work in progress, but the main rooms - although unfinished - can now be used for occasional exhibitions and allow some public access to the building. Unfortunately, the work of the trust suffered a serious setback in April 2024 when there was a second serious blaze, thought to be caused by arson, which further damaged the building.
Descent: Richard Bampfylde (c.1526-94); to son, Sir Amyas Bampfylde (c.1559-1626); to son, John Bampfylde (c.1586-1657); to grandson, Sir Coplestone Bampfylde (c.1638-91), 2nd bt.; to grandson, Sir Coplestone Warwick Bampfylde (c.1689-1727), 3rd bt.; to son, Sir Richard Warwick Bampfylde (1722-76), 4th bt.; to son, Sir Charles Warwick Bampfylde (1753-1823), 5th bt.; to son, Sir George Warwick Bampfylde (1786-1858), 6th bt. and 1st Baron Poltimore; to son, Augustus George Frederick Warwick Bampfylde (1837-1908), 2nd Baron Poltimore; to son, Coplestone Richard George Warwick Bampfylde (1859-1918), 3rd Baron Poltimore; to son, George Wentworth Warwick Bampfylde (1882-1965), 4th Baron Poltimore;... sold c.1945 to Dr. Richard Fortescue-Foulkes; sold 1963 to Exeter Area Health Authority; sold 1975 for use as a convalescent home...sold 2000 to Poltimore House Trust.
Court Hall, North Molton, Devon
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| Court Hall, North Molton: the house in use as a nursery school before demolition. Image: Historic England. |
Descent: built for Sir Amyas Bampfylde (c.1559-1626); to son, John Bampfylde (c.1586-1657); to grandson, Sir Coplestone Bampfylde (c.1638-91), 2nd bt.; to grandson, Sir Coplestone Warwick Bampfylde (c.1689-1727), 3rd bt.; to son, Sir Richard Warwick Bampfylde (1722-76), 4th bt.; to son, Sir Charles Warwick Bampfylde (1753-1823), 5th bt.; to son, Sir George Warwick Bampfylde (1786-1858), 6th bt. and 1st Baron Poltimore; to son, Augustus George Frederick Warwick Bampfylde (1837-1908), 2nd Baron Poltimore; to son, Coplestone Richard George Warwick Bampfylde (1859-1918), 3rd Baron Poltimore; to son, George Wentworth Warwick Bampfylde (1882-1965), 4th Baron Poltimore; to daughter, Hon. Sheila Margaret Warwick Bampfylde (1912-96), wife of Sir Dennis Frederick Bankes Stucley, 5th bt.; to daughter Sally (b. 1942), wife of Charles Worthington (b. 1930).
Warleigh House, Tamerton Foliot, Devon
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| Warleigh House: watercolour of c.1790 by W. Payne. Image: West Country Studies Library |
Warleigh, which was the manor house of Tamerton Foliot, stands on a wonderful site on the banks of the river Tavy, close to its confluence with the Tamar. There has been a house here since at least the 12th century, which belonged in the medieval period to the Foliot, Gorges and Bonville families, before coming to the Copplestones of Copplestone, from whom it passed by marriage to the Bampfyldes in about 1630. They in turn sold the estate to the Radcliffes in 1741. The house now consists of a fundamentally medieval (perhaps 14th century) north range, with a taller gabled E-plan Tudor range adjoining it to the south; they are back to back but the medieval range extends further to the east and the Tudor one further to the west. The medieval part has been much altered, and now has mainly Tudor mullioned and transomed windows, although the former chapel at the east end has a renewed Perpendicular Gothic window. The Tudor range is of two storeys with attics, and a view of 1795 shows a return elevation to the west with a further two gables. In the 18th century the Radcliffes made some internal alterations, reordering the great hall and the adjoining room (which has a shell-headed niche), the library, and at least two of the south-facing bedrooms.
By the early 19th century there were plans for rebuilding the house entirely, and Richard Brown, a young London architect, exhibited designs for a new house at the Royal Academy in 1808. Nothing was done, however, and the medieval and Tudor house was not altered until 1825-32, when John Foulston remodelled it for the Rev. Walter Radcliffe. He added the large sash windows with Tudor-style dripstones on the south front and the crenellated block at the north-west angle of the house, with canted bays on the north and west sides, and also built the gothic lodge at the end of the drive with the Radcliffe family crest on its south gable.
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| Warleigh House: the south front in recent years. |
Inside, the two-storey great hall survives to the left of the porch, with a 16th century stone fireplace, and a stone arch through to the oriel room at its south-west corner. The gallery on the south and east sides was added in the 18th century, and is approached via a staircase inserted at the same time into the north wing. East of the hall is a room with good fielded 18th century panelling. Foulston's extension at the north-west angle is occupied by a saloon with a Gothick marble chimneypiece and a pretty cornice with little Gothick pendants.
By 1960 the house was leased as a nursing home, and after 1980 it became a retirement home and later a centre for music studies. It was at this time that the house acquired a regrettable coating of pebble-dash in place of its original lime render; it is good that this has since been removed, but the house badly needs the return of the lime render to protect the stonework. After a brief period in private ownership Warleigh became an hotel, but after the owner became ill it was sold as a private home again. The late 20th and early 21st century changes of use and owner have all been accompanied by changes to the interior which have somewhat eroded the historic fabric. The manorial status of the house is attested by a ruined brick dovecote, dating from c.1600, which stands near the stables to the right of the drive. On axis with the south front are the walls and banks of an elaborate terraced garden which was clearly intended to form a formal composition with the house: a smaller kitchen garden adjoins it to one side. Otherwise the grounds are informally planted, and the long avenue from the public road dates on from the 20th century.
Descent: ... John Coplestone (1609-32); to sister, Gertrude (d. 1658), wife of Sir John Bampfylde (c.1610-50), 1st bt.; to son, Sir Coplestone Bampfylde (c.1638-92); given to son, Col. Hugh Bampfylde (1663-91); to younger son, John Bampfylde (1691-1750), who sold 1741 to Walter Radcliffe (1693-1752); to son, Walter Radcliffe (1733-1803); to brother, John Radcliffe (1735-1805); to nephew, Rev. Walter Radcliffe (fl. 1835); to son, Walter Coplestone Radcliffe (1815-76); to son, Walter John Deacon Radcliffe (1858-1930); to son, Walter Henry Radcliffe (b. 1893), who leased it as a nursing home;...sold 1998 to David Piper (1950-2014); sold c.2010 to Kris Clayton, who briefly operated it as an hotel before selling in 2015 to the TV personality and former politician, Robert Kilroy-Silk.
Hardington House, Hardington Mandeville, Somerset
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| Hardington House: the ruins of the house as depicted in an engraving in The Gentleman's Magazine, 1802. |
After the death of Col. Warwick Bampfield in 1694 the 'ancient manor house of Hardington' was probably largely unoccupied. Col. Bampfield made provision in his will for the house to be occupied by any member of his family who could be persuaded to live in it, which suggests that it may already have been in poor repair, and later in the 18th century Sir Richard Bampfylde suggested that the house 'can give a good idea of Gentleman's Houses built before the beginning of the 16th century'. The property descended to Sir Charles Warwick Bampfylde (1753-1823), 5th bt., and some time between 1776 and 1801 the house was largely destroyed by a fire, leaving it in the state shown in this view. When Sir Charles was murdered in 1823, Hardington passed to his illegitimate son, the Rev. Charles Francis Bampfylde (c.1787-1855), who had earlier been installed as the rector. He was also rector of Dunkerton on the other side of Somerset, where he preferred to live. The land was let to tenant farmers and much of it was sold in 1844; the remained was auctioned off in 1859, when the family's connection to Hardington came to an end. The property seems to have been acquired by the Jolliffes of Ammerdown Park (Barons Hylton), who restored part of the house, which was still standing in 1928. Fifty years later even this fragment had gone, and the earthworks of the site and remaining walls etc were cleared in 1977 to make way for mechanised farming by the Co-operative Society.
Descent: John de Pederton; to daughter Agnes, wife of John Bampfield (fl. early 15th cent.); to younger son, Richard Bampfield (d. by 1499); to son, John Bampfield (d. 1528); to son, Thomas Bampfield (b. c.1498); to son, John Bampfield; to son, Thomas Bampfield (d. by 1656); to son, Col. Warwick Bampfield (c.1621-95); to distant kinsman, Sir Coplestone Warwick Bampfylde (c.1689-1727), 3rd bt.; to son, Sir Richard Warwick Bampfylde (1722-76), 4th bt.; to son, Sir Charles Warwick Bampfylde (1753-1823), 5th bt.; to illegitimate son, Rev. Charles Francis Bampfylde (c.1787-1855), who sold part of it in 1844, and whose executors sold the remainder in 1859...
Hestercombe offers the visitor a wealth of interest, but it is the restored 18th century landscape garden to the north, and the famous terraced garden laid out by Sir Edwin Lutyens in 1904 and planted by Gertrude Jekyll which draw the crowds. The house itself suffered badly from heavy-handed Victorian interventions, but fortunately its earlier states are reasonably well-recorded, and its architectural development can still be discerned. The core is the medieval and 17th century house of the Warre family, which was recorded as it stood in about 1720.
This view shows an irregular L-shaped building with a mid-17th century centrepiece (which is perhaps reminiscent of that at Forde Abbey (Dorset), and straggling ranges of different periods running off to the south and north-west. A porch appears to stand in the angle between the west front and the north-west wing, and in the foreground is a detached chapel and what is thought to have been built as an orangery, but which later became the stable block.
The house was regularised and refaced in brick in 1730-32 for John Bampfylde (1691-1750), and appears as thus altered in the background of a portrait of Coplestone Warre Bampfylde (1720-91) by John Wootton. This shows that the present south-west corner block dates from this period, and that the regular fenestration with sash windows was done at the same time. The freestanding chapel still existed at this point, but the 17th century centrepiece and irregular wings have all gone. On the skyline can be seen an obelisk, which may be evidence of an early scheme of landscaping for John Bampfylde. The estate accounts contain references to drawing up plans for the gardens in 1720, 1728 and 1731, but the Wootton portrait is evidence that any plans for elaborate formal gardens were abandoned.
Coplestone Warre Bampfylde, who was an amateur architect as well as a gentleman artist, made further changes to the house, but his attention was directed more to the landscape garden north-east of the house. A canted bay window was added at the north-west corner of the house, and he may have been responsible for the further refacing of the west front in a distinctive purplish local stone.
Inside, neither John Bampfylde nor his son made a clean sweep of the interiors, and the house became (and to some extent remains) an intriguing mixture of 17th century, 1730 and later 18th century work. The great hall of the medieval house had apparently been truncated in the 17th century but it remained a barrel-vaulted two-storey space until the 1870s, with the addition of classical columns supporting the gallery, painted trophies on the walls, and a classical decorative band on the long wall. The Pillar Room combined a fine late 17th century plaster ceiling with an 18th century columned screen and bookcases. Coplestone Warre Bampfylde no doubt executed the delicate neo-classical decorative painting scheme in the drawing room.
Few if any alterations were made to the house between the death of C.W. Bampfylde in 1791 and his great-niece in 1872. The photographs above, taken in about 1873, show that the house remained in good order despite long years of occupation by an eccentric spinster. However, when the house was sold to Lord Portman, he embarked on a radical and to modern eyes, less than judicious remodelling. Designs were first made by Henry Hall, a second-rate London architect, but these proposals were rejected in favour of a cheaper scheme by James Baker Green of Blandford Forum (Dorset). Green died soon after work was begun, and Hall was then recalled to tidy things up. He wanted to replace Green's weak attic gables and to add a large bow-fronted projection on the south side, but was restrained.
The additions, in a loosely 'Free Renaissance' style, radically altered the west front, although with the aid of earlier views it is possible to see the Georgian house underneath. The main additions are the centrepiece with porte-cochère, and the pavilion-roofed north tower, which contains a water tank. On the south side, less was done to the existing elevations, but Green added the attics. Inside the house, the major Victorian alterations were the creation of a top-lit neo-Jacobean imperial staircase with a coved neo-Rococo ceiling and the replacement of 17th century great hall.
Coplestone Warre Bampfylde, who was a close friend of the keen landscapers Henry Hoare of Stourhead and Sir Charles Kemeys Tynte of Halswell, embarked on his own improvements soon after inheriting the estate, and continued to make further alterations until his death. His site was the steep valley east and north of the house, where he created a series of water features and decorative buildings designed to conjure the mood of a landscape painting by Claude or Poussin. A pear-shaped lake (apparently first formed in 1698 but enlarged in the 1750s) is fed by an improved stream and by the Great Cascade, a contrived but natural-seeming waterfall on one side, which Lord Palmerston in 1787 called 'a most romantic and beautiful object'. Most of the buildings were in place by the time Bampfylde's brother-in-law wrote a description of the garden in 1761, but the Great Cascade was added after Bampfylde visited William Shenstone's garden at The Leasowes in 1762,
while the Doric Temple seems only to have been built in the 1770s, and the Friendship Urn, a memorial to his friendship with Hoare and Kemeys Tynte, was bought from the Coade Stone catalogue in 1786. The buildings (all reconstructed since 1995) now include an octagonal brick summerhouse, a Chinese seat supported on four posts, a thatched Rustic Seat, the Temple Arbour, which reuses the original columns of c.1775, the thatched and bark-lined Witch House (originally called Urganda's Cave); the 'Mausoleum' of c.1755 which was never a place of burial and is just a place for contemplation in the garden; and a Gothic alcove overlooking the vale of Taunton. Throughout the long chatelaineship of Miss Warre in the 19th century, the gardens became neglected and 'a shadowy thing of the past, rather than a reality of the living and breathing present', as a local antiquary, the Rev. T. Hugo, saw them. He wrote:
The third element of the site is the formal garden created by Lutyens and Gertrude Jekyll in 1904-08. There was already a balustraded upper terrace before the south front, created in 1875-77 for Lord Portman. Below this, Lutyens excavated and levelled an area for a huge parterre, to which he provided access by additions to the terrace incorporating steps down, which lead not directly into the parterre but into a pair of long narrow flanking strips, each with a central rill flowing through it. The south side of the parterre is closed by a low pergola, which provides a sense of enclosure without obstructing the views over the landscape beyond. To the east of the upper terrace a second garden space opens: a long terrace garden with at its centre Lutyens' powerful classical Orangery of 1906-08, built of strikingly contrasted golden Ham Hill stone, slate, and red pantiles with white woodwork.
During the Second World War the house was used by the British and later the US army, but it seems to have avoided the usual wanton damage inflicted by resident soldiery. In 1944 the Portman family transferred the house to the Crown Estate in lieu of death duties, but an arrangement was made for Mrs. Portman to remain at the house until her death. After she died, the house was leased to Somerset County Council as a headquarters for its Fire & Rescue Service, and they remained in occupation until 2013. For much of this time, the Lutyens garden was well maintained and open to the public, although the 18th century garden was largely lost as a result of clear-felling of the valuable 18th century parkland trees by the Crown Estate in the early 1960s. Efforts to restore the 18th century garden commenced in 1992 and from 1995 the Hestercombe Gardens Trust leased the site from the Crown and began restoration in earnest. In 2013 the whole property was sold to the Hestercombe Gardens Trust for £1 and work on restoration accelerated. The house now houses a contemporary art gallery, the Column Room Restaurant and a second hand bookshop, as well as some offices. The site is also used as a wedding and events venue.
Descent: Richard Warre; to son, Richard Warre; to son, John Warre; to son, Robert Warre (fl. 1443); to son, Richard Warre (d. 1482/3); to second cousin, Sir Richard Warre; to son, Thomas Warre; to son, Richard Warre; to son, Roger Warre (d. 1615); to son, Richard Warre (1574-1638); to grandson, Sir John Warre (1636-69), kt.; to son, Sir Francis Warre (c.1659-1718), 1st bt.; to daughter, Margaret, wife of John Bampfylde (1691-1750); to son, Coplestone Warre Bampfylde (1720-91); to nephew, John Tyndale (later Warre) (1757-1819); to daughter, Elizabeth Maria Tyndale Warre (1790-1872); to Alexander Hugh Baring (1835-89), 4th Baron Ashburton, who sold 1872 to Edward Berkeley Portman (1799-1888), 1st Viscount Portman; to son, William Henry Berkeley Portman (1829-1919), 2nd Viscount Portman, who gave the house c.1895 to his eldest son and heir apparent, Hon. Edward Henry Berkeley Portman (d. 1911); to widow, Constance Portman (d. 1951); sold after her death to Somerset County Council; sold 2013 to Hestercombe Gardens Trust.
Bampfield, Richard (c.1526-94). Only son of Sir Edward Bampfield (d. 1528), kt. and his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Richard Wadham of Merryfield (Somerset) and widow of John Warre of Chipley Park (Somerset), born about 1526. A story current in the 18th century records that after being orphaned he was brought up in the household of a nobleman who concealed from him his rank and possessions and made him his groom; but a former tenant from the estate sought him out, convinced him of his identity, and helped him secure his rightful inheritance. High Sheriff of Devon, 1576. He married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir John Sydenham, kt., of Brympton d'Evercy (Somerset), and had issue:
(1) Giles Bampfield; died in the lifetime of his father on a voyage to Ireland;
(2) Elizabeth Bampfield (d. c.1585); married, as the second of his three wives, George Cary (c.1543-1601) of Clovelly (Devon), but had no issue; died before 1586;
(3) Sir Amyas Bampfield (c.1559-1626) (q.v.);
(4) Richard Bampfield; probably died unmarried;
(5) Joan Bampfield; probably died unmarried;
(6) Ursula Bampfield (d. 1639); reputedly the author of 'devotional and elegiac verse'; married, 1580 (licence 10 October), Thomas Fulford (1553-1610) of Great Fulford (Devon) and had issue three sons and three daughters; buried at Dunsford (Devon), 1639; her will was proved at Exeter, 1640;
(7) Susan Bampfield; married 1st, as his second wife, John Hays of Myll, Witheridge (Devon) and 2nd, a Mr. Simcock;
(8) Mary Bampfield; married 1st, Humphrey Moore (d. c.1602) of Moore Hayes, Cullompton (Devon), son of Sir John Moore, kt., and had issue four sons and two daughters; married 2nd, c.1605, Rev. Richard Bowden (d. 1625), rector of Poltimore, 1602-07, and later vicar of Okehampton;
(9) Gertrude Bampfield; married Henry Hurding (d. 1627) of Long Bredy (Dorset) (who m2, Eliza Snow and had further issue two sons and two daughters) and had issue two daughters;
(10) Anne Bampfield; married 1st, as his second wife, Christopher Morgan (d. 1591/2) of Mapperton (Dorset) and 2nd, c.1595, John Luttrell MP (1566-1620) of London and North Mapperton (Dorset), son of Thomas Luttrell of Dunster Castle (Somerset), by whom she had four sons and one daughter;
(11) Catherine Bampfield; died unmarried;
(12) Margaret Bampfield; married William Lacy of Hartrow (Somerset).
He inherited the Poltimore estate from his father and built a new house there in about 1559.
He died 29 May 1594 and was buried at Poltimore, where he is commemorated by a monument erected by his son in 1604. His wife died 4 May 1599.
Bampfield, Sir Amyas (c.1559-1626). Second, but eldest surviving son of Richard Bampfield (d. 1594) and his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Sir John Sydenham, born 9 February 1558. Educated at Exeter College, Oxford (matriculated 1575) and Middle Temple (admitted 1576). JP for Devon from 1596 and DL from 1616; High Sheriff of Devon, 1604; MP for Devon, 1597-98. He was knighted at Windsor, 9 July 1603. He married Elizabeth (d. 1630?), daughter of Sir John Clifton of Barrington (Somerset) and had issue twelve sons and five daughters including:
(1) Richard Bampfield; died young before 1620;
(2) John Bampfield (c.1586-c.1657) (q.v.);
(3) William Bampfield (d. 1650?); inherited an estate at North Molton from his father; an officer in the Parliamentary army (Col., 1642), where he was appointed to command a regiment of foot originally raised for service in Ireland under Lord Wharton, and then transferred to the Earl of Essex’s Army; after seeing service at Braddock Down, Cornwall (18 January 1643), ‘it is possible that only a shattered remnant of the regiment returned to Plymouth’, but it was evidently at the battle of Beacon Hill (23 April 1643) and may have been part of the force routed at Stratton (16 May 1643), falling back to Exeter, where it was involved in the fighting in July and August 1643, before being disbanded later that summer; he was perhaps the man of this name buried at Bath (Somerset), 6 June 1650;
(4) Amias Bampfield (d. 1656); educated at Corpus Christi College, Oxford (matriculated 1613/4; BA 1616) and Middle Temple (admitted 1618); lived at Weston Bampfylde (Somerset); married, 17 October 1628 at Broadhembury (Devon), Agnes Willoughby and had issue at least three sons and four daughters; will proved 2 September 1656;
(5) Edward Bampfield (d. 1644); educated at Corpus Christi College, Oxford (matriculated 1616) and Middle Temple (admitted 1617); lived at Stoke Canon (Devon); inherited the disparked New Park in North Molton from his father; died in 1644;
(6) Rev. James Bampfield (d. 1663); educated at St Alban Hall, Oxford (matriculated 1620/1; BA 1621; MA 1623/4); ordained priest, 1628; rector of Black Torrington (Devon), 1628-63 and of Rattery (Devon), 1634-63; will proved at Exeter, 1663;
(7) Dorothy Bampfield (d. 1614); married 1st, Edward Hancock (c.1560-1603) of Combe Martin (Devon), clerk of the assizes, and had issue one son; married 2nd, as the second of his three wives, Sir John Dodderidge (1555-1628), kt., of Bremridge (Devon), justice of king's bench; died 1 March 1614/5 and was buried in Exeter Cathedral, where she is commemorated by a monument;
(8) Anne Bampfield; died without issue;
(9) Jane Bampfield (c.1584-1613); married, 22 November 1602 at Buckland Monachorum* (Devon), Sir Francis Drake (1588-1637), 1st bt., of Buckland Abbey, and had issue one daughter; buried 26 February 1613;
(10) Elizabeth Bampfield; died without issue.
He inherited Poltimore House from his father in 1594 and is said to have built Court Hall at North Molton (Devon).
He died 9 February and was buried at North Molton, 15 February 1625/6, where he is commemorated by a monument; an inquisition post mortem was taken, 2 March 1625/6 and his will was proved 31 March 1626. His widow is said to have died 5 February 1630.
* This was part of a double ceremony in which her brother John married Elizabeth, the daughter of Thomas Drake. All the parties were children at the time and their married lives did not begin until some years later, c.1607-10.
Bampfield, John (c.1586-c.1657). Eldest surviving son of Sir Amyas Bampfield (c.1559-1626), kt., and his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Sir John Clifton of Barrington (Somerset), born c.1586. Educated at Exeter College, Oxford (matriculated 1604) and Middle Temple (admitted 1607). MP for Tiverton, 1621 and Devon, 1628-29. He was a JP for Devon, 1627-40, 1643, 1647-50, 1651-52 and DL for Devon, 1626-39 or later; High Sheriff of Devon, 1633-34. He was Col. of the Devon foot militia by 1633. He served on many local commissions, including being a Commissioner for Piracy in Devon, 1619-20, 1624, 1630, 1637-39. By 1639 he had become disenchanted with the King's policies and joined in various critical petitions to the Crown. When the Civil War broke out in 1642 he joined his son in supporting the Parliamentarian side, although his allegiance was less certain; in 1644 (when Devon was in Royalist hands) he sued for a pardon from the king for 'treasons committed' over the past three years. He married, 22 September 1602 at Buckland Monarchorum*, Elizabeth (1592-1629), daughter of Thomas Drake of Buckland (brother of Admiral Sir Francis Drake), and had issue:
(1) Amias Bampfield (b. c.1608), probably born c.1608; educated at Middle Temple (admitted 1627); said to have died in Italy, without issue, in the lifetime of his father;
(2) Arthur Bampfield (b. c.1609), probably born c.1609; died young before 1620;
(3) Sir John Bampfield (c.1610-50), 1st bt. (q.v.);
(4) Richard Bampfield (b. c.1611), born about 1611; died young before 1620;
(5) Lewis Bampfield (c.1612-46), born about 1612; educated at Wadham College, Oxford (matriculated 1629) and Middle Temple (admitted 1630/1; called to bar, 1638); barrister-at-law; died unmarried and was buried in the Temple Church, London, 23 February 1645/6;
(6) Rev. Francis Bampfield (1615-84); said to have been born 1615; educated at Wadham College, Oxford (matriculated 1634; MA 1638); ordained deacon and priest, 1639; vicar of Rampisham (Dorset), 1639 and later also of Sherborne (Dorset) until ejected in 1662; he then set up a independent ministry but was arrested and imprisoned at Dorchester, where he adopted Seventh Day Baptist beliefs; after his release in 1671 he was again imprisoned at Salisbury for about eighteen months and then moved to Bethnal Green (Middx) where he again founded a Seventh Day Baptist church and was arrested and imprisoned three times; he published nine or ten religious works between his spells of imprisonment; he was unmarried and without issue; died in Newgate Gaol, 16 February 1683/4 and was buried at Glasshouse Yard Baptist Cemetery, Goswell Road, Clerkenwell (Middx);
(7) Alexander Bampfield (fl. 1620); living in 1620 but probably died young;
(8) Thomas Bampfield (c.1623-93), born about 1623; educated at Exeter College, Oxford (matriculated 1640) and Middle Temple (admitted 1642; called to bar, 1649; bencher, 1659); barrister-at-law; MP for Exeter, 1654, 1656, 1659, 1660; briefly Speaker of the House of Commons, 14-22 April 1659; Deputy Recorder of Exeter, 1652-54 and Recorder, 1654-60; JP for Devon, 1653-55 and 1688-89; DL for Devon, 1688; died 8 October 1693 and was buried at St Stephen, Exeter;
(9) Elizabeth Bampfield (d. c.1638); married 1st, as his second wife, John Willoughby (b. c.1578) of Payhembury and 2nd, about November 1636, as his second of three wives, Arthur Ayshford (c.1601-47) of Ayshford (Devon); died about 1638;
(10) Dorothy Bampfield (d. 1661); married Henry Worth (c.1605-80) of Worth (Devon) and had issue seven sons and six daughters; buried at Washfield (Devon), 8 March 1660/1;
(11) Joan Bampfield; probably died young;
(12) Ann Bampfield; probably died young;
(13) Ursula Bampfield; probably died young;
(14) Bridget Bampfield (1625-57), baptised at Poltimore, 7 June 1625; married, as his second wife, Col. Henry Henley MP (c.1612-96) of Leigh, Winsham (Somerset) and Colway, Lyme Regis (Dorset), and had issue two daughters; buried at Lyme Regis, 9 October 1657;
(15) Mary Bampfield (c.1626-70), born about 1626; married James Rodd (c.1611-78) of Bedford House, Exeter (Devon) and had issue at least two sons and two daughters; died 15 August 1670 and was buried at St Stephen, Exeter, where she is commemorated by a monument.
He inherited Poltimore House and Court Hall, North Molton from his father in 1626.
He made his will on 31 July 1656, and died before administration of his goods was granted in September 1657. His wife died in 1629 and he founded an almshouse at Poltimore in her memory in 1631.
* This was part of a double ceremony in which his sister married Francis, the son and heir of Thomas Drake. All the parties were children at the time and their married lives did not begin until some years later, c.1607-10.
Bampfield, Sir John (c.1610-50), 1st bt. Third, but eldest surviving, son of John Bampfield and his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Drake of Buckland, born about 1610. Educated at Wadham College, Oxford (matriculated 1629) and Middle Temple (admitted 1630). He was created 1st baronet of Poltimore, 14 July 1641. During the Civil War, he emerged as a leader of the Parliamentarian faction in Devon, but was always a moderate. MP for Penryn in the Long Parliament, 1640-48, being excluded at the time of Pride's Purge. He was Colonel of the Trained Band of north-east Devon in 1642-43, and was appointed Governor of the island and fort of St. Nicholas in Plymouth Sound, 1644. He also served as a member of the Sequestration Committee for Devon. He married, 3 May 1637, Gertrude (1611-58), daughter of Amias Coplestone and co-heir of her brother John Coplestone of Coplestone and Warleigh (Devon), and had issue including:
(1) Sir Coplestone Bampfylde (c.1638-92), 2nd bt. (q.v.);
(2) Elizabeth Bampfield, probably born c.1639; married, before 1657, as his second wife, Thomas Moore (1618-95) of Haychurch and had issue three sons and seven daughters;
(3) Gertrude Bampfield (d. by 1676), probably born c.1640; married, 21 March 1654/5, Sir William Morice (c.1628-90), 1st bt., of Werrington Park (Cornwall) (who m2, 1676 (licence 5 Sept.), Elizabeth (d. 1684), daughter of Thomas Reynell of East Ogwell), and had issue one son and three daughters; died in or before 1676;
(4) Grace Bampfield (fl. 1659-77), probably born c.1640; third daughter; married, 1659 (settlement 15 July), Sir William Bastard (c.1636-90) of Gerston, West Alvington (Devon) and had issue seven sons and three daughters;
(5) Susanna Bampfield (1641-70), baptised at Poltimore, 2 May 1641; fourth daughter; married John Giffard (d. 1712) of Brightly in Chittlehampton (Devon) (who m2, Frances Fane), and had issue; died 1670;
(6) John Bampfield (c.1642-64); educated at Magdalen Hall, Oxford (matriculated 1659); mentioned as second son in his mother's will in 1657; died unmarried and without issue, 1664;
(7) Frances Bampfield (d. 1677), probably born c.1643; fifth daughter; married, 30 March 1676 at Clyst St. George (Devon), Sir John Elwill (c.1642-1717), 1st bt., of Pinhoe, Exeter (who m2, 1682, Anne, daughter of Edmund Lee of London, saddler, by whom he had two sons and two daughters), but had no issue; will proved at Exeter, 1677;
(8) Amias Bampfield (b. 1645), baptised at St Dunstan-in-the-West, London, 31 August 1645; married, 1690 at St. Decuman's (Somerset), Arabella (d. 1732), daughter of Sir Hugh Wyndham, kt., of Kentsford, St. Decuman's, and had issue two daughters;
(9) Dorothy Bampfield (d. 1679); youngest daughter; married, by August 1673, Sir Francis Drake (1642-1718), 3rd bt., of Buckland (Devon); buried at Buckland Monarchorum (Devon), 30 January 1678/9;
(10) Lewis Bampfield (d. 1699); married, 8 April 1679 at Toller Porcorum (Dorset), Elizabeth Wykes (d. 1710), and had issue two sons and two daughters; administration of goods granted at Bristol, 6 May 1699;
(11) Richard Bampfield (b. c.1650); educated at Wadham College, Oxford (matriculated 1667); died unmarried after 1670;
(12) Ursula Bampfield; died young before 1657;
(13) Mary Bampfield; died young before 1657.
His wife inherited Warleigh House near Plymouth from her brother in 1632, and brought this property to the Bampfyldes.
He died 24 April 1650 and was buried at Poltimore, where he is commemorated by a ledger stone. His widow died 29 March 1658; her will was proved in the PCC, 29 November 1658.
Bampfield (later Bampfylde), Sir Coplestone (c.1638-92), 2nd bt. Son of Sir John Bampfield (c.1610-50), 1st bt. and his wife Gertrude, daughter of Amias Coplestone and co-heir of her brother John Coplestone of Coplestone and Warleigh (Devon), born about 1638. He succeeded his father as 2nd baronet, 24 April 1650, and came of age in about 1659. Educated at Corpus Christi College, Oxford (matriculated 1650/1), where he was noted for his 'very generous and splendid way of living'. He was a Royalist, and perhaps to distinguish himself from the Parliamentary sympathies of his father and grandfather, changed the spelling of his surname from Bampfield to Bampfylde. He was a JP for Devon, 1656-92 and MP for Tiverton in the third Protectorate Parliament, 1659. He joined in a 'remonstrance' to the Rump Parliament and in 1660 presented to General Monck a petition of right from the county of Devon, for which he was briefly imprisoned in the Tower of London. High Sheriff of Devon, 1660-61; DL for Devon, 1661-c.1687; MP for Devon, 1671-79 and 1685-87; Colonel of the Devon militia, 1660-c.1685. He opposed the policies of King James II in Parliament until he was turned out of parliament and the lieutenancy, and he initially welcomed the arrival of William of Orange, but the Revolution of 1688 went too far for him and he later refused to recognised the new King or the legitimacy of the taxes he raised (with the result that the commissioners had to destrain on his goods to secure payment). On his deathbed he enjoined his family ‘that they should always continue faithful to the religion of the Established Church of England, and be sure to pay their allegiance to the right heirs of the Crown’. He was described by a political opponent as 'much addicted to tippling', and was well over six feet tall, strongly built and handsome, with ‘a ready wit and a good judgement’. He lived beyond his income for many years, however, 'always keeping about him a great retinue and a noble equipage. He was ... of a courteous, obliging carriage to all, but very condescending to his inferiors, willing to befriend and gratify them, if in any thing they applied themselves unto him. ... In a word, he was every way a gallant gentleman, and was the honour of his time and our country' [J. Prince, Worthies of Devon, 1701]. He married 1st, 16 November 1655 at Poltimore, Margaret (d. 1671?), daughter of Francis Bulkeley of Nether Burgate, Fordingbridge (Hants) and 2nd, 1674 (licence 21 October) at Houghton (Devon) Jane (c.1654-1710), daughter of Sir Courtney Pole, 2nd bt., of Shute House (Devon) and had issue including:
(1.1) Hugh Bampfylde (1663?-91) (q.v.);
(1.2) John Coplestone Bulkeley Bampfylde (c.1659-69); supposedly the younger son; a precocious scholar; died aged 10 and was buried at Tamerton Foliot, 1669, where he was commemorated by a monument which shows him dressed as an adult scholar with a book and an elaborate inscription in Latin and Greek;
(1.3) Margaret Bampfylde; died in infancy.
He inherited Warleigh House from his father in 1650 and Poltimore House and Court Hall, North Molton from his grandfather in about 1650.
He died, reputedly of gout triggered by the stress of losing his heir, at Warleigh House, 9 February 1691/2, and was buried at Poltimore. His first wife is said to have died in 1671. His widow married 2nd, Edward Gibbons of Whitechapel (Devon) and died about September 1710; her will was proved at Exeter, 5 October 1710.
Bampfylde, Col. Hugh (1663?-91). Son of Sir Coplestone Bampfylde (c.1638-92), 2nd bt., and his first wife Margaret, daughter of Francis Bulkeley of Nether Burgate, Fordingbridge (Hants), baptised at Poltimore, 1663, but possibly born some years earlier if he was the eldest son. Probably a Colonel in the Devon militia; he attended William of Orange soon after he landed in England in 1688, but subsequently refused to accept the Revolution settlement. He was described as "a young gentleman of the sweetest temper and the greatest hopes of any other in all those parts". He married, 29 May 1684 at Kingsteignton (Devon), Mary, daughter of Hugh Clifford (last of the Cliffords of Boscombe and Kingsteignton), and had issue:
(1) Sir Coplestone Warwick Bampfylde (c.1689-1727), 3rd bt. (q.v.);
(2) John Bampfylde (1691-1750) [for whom see below, Bampfylde of Hestercombe].
He lived at Warleigh House near Plymouth.
He died 16 June 1691 after breaking his neck falling from his horse. His widow's date of death is unknown.
Bampfylde, Sir Coplestone Warwick (c.1689-1727), 3rd bt. Elder son of Hugh Bampfylde (1663-91) and his wife Mary, daughter of Hugh Clifford (last of the Cliffords of Boscombe and Kingsteignton), born about 1689/90. He succeeded his grandfather as 3rd baronet, 9 February 1691/2. He was brought up by his mother, who ensured his interests were protected during a series of lawsuits about property brought by members of the family and other interested parties; his trustees secured a private Act of Parliament allowing them to renew and extend leases on the estate during his minority. Educated at Christ Church, Oxford (matriculated 1707/8). Tory MP for Exeter, 1710-13 and for Devon, 1713-27. Described as 'a drunken country gentleman', he was a member of the October Club of Tory MPs and a Jacobite; during the 1715 rebellion he was one of the MPs taken into custody for treasonable practices, although he remained a JP for Devon. In 1720 his name was among those sent to the Pretender as a probable supporter in the event of an uprising, and after the discovery of the Atterbury Plot in 1722 he sheltered Atterbury's secretary, the historian Thomas Carte. In 1721 the South Sea Company Inquiry found that in the previous year he had accepted £1,000 of South Sea stock without paying for it. He married, 1716 (licence 1 June), Gertrude, daughter of Sir John Carew, 3rd bt., of Antony (Cornwall) and widow of Sir Godfrey Copley MP, 2nd bt. of Sprotborough Hall (Yorks), and had issue:
(1) Mary Bampfylde (1718-62), baptised at Poltimore, 2 August 1718; married 1st, 1 July 1738, her cousin, Sir Coventry Carew (c.1716-48) MP, 6th bt. of Antony House (Cornwall); and 2nd, 27 June 1749 at Antony, Francis Buller MP (1723-64) of Morval (Cornwall), but had no issue; buried at Poltimore, 5 December 1762; will proved in the PCC, 7 May 1763;
(2) Sir Richard Warwick Bampfylde (1722-76), 4th bt. (q.v.).
He inherited Poltimore House and Court Hall, North Molton from his grandfather in 1692 and Hardington Park from his cousin Col. Warwick Bampfylde in September 1695.
He died 7 October and was buried at Poltimore, 14 October 1727; his will was proved at Exeter, 1727. His widow died 14 April and was buried at Poltimore, 23 April 1736; her will was proved 1736.
Bampfylde, Sir Richard Warwick (1722-76), 4th bt. Only son of Sir Coplestone Warwick Bampfylde (c.1689-1727), 3rd bt., and his wife Gertrude, daughter of Sir John Carew, 3rd bt., of Antony (Cornwall), baptised at Poltimore, 21 November 1722. Educated at New College, Oxford (matriculated 1739; created MA 1741). He succeeded his father as 4th baronet, 7 October 1727, and came of age in 1743. Tory MP for Exeter, 1743-47 and for Devon, 1747-76. He acted as steward of the anniversary dinner for the independent electors of Westminster, 1747. His political career was not marked by any great expense as he was returned unopposed, and he was described by one observer as a miser, known as 'Tenpenny Dick' from his desire to reduce agricultural day wages to that level. He married, 1 August 1742 at Somerset House chapel, London, Jane (1720-89), daughter and sole heiress of Col. John Codrington of Charlton House, Wraxall (Somerset), and had issue:
(1) Gertrude Bampfylde (1743-69), born 10 May and baptised at Wraxall (Somerset), 11 May 1743; married, 6 October 1768 at Poltimore, Oldfield Bowles (1739-1810) of North Aston (Oxon), amateur artist and actor (who m2, 29 October 1770, Mary, daughter of Sir Abraham Isaac Elton, 4th bt., of Clevedon Court (Somerset) and had issue one son and eight daughters), but had no issue; buried at North Aston, 3 October 1769;
(2) Elizabeth Bampfylde (1746-1834), born 15 April and baptised at St Giles in the Fields, Westminster (Middx), 9 May 1746; married, 15 January 1780 at St Laurence, Exeter, Lt-Col. John Gordon (1730-82), second son of John Gordon of Ballintaggart (Co. Down), but had no issue; lived at Hartland (Devon) and later at Stoke Cottage near Exeter; died at Beckenham (Kent), 7 April 1834; will proved 21 May 1834;
(3) Jenny Codrington Bampfylde (1748-1828), born at Bristol, 12 February and baptised at St Augustine, Bristol, 9 March 1747/8; investigated by a commission of lunacy, 1788 and declared a lunatic, 22 December 1808; died unmarried, 1828;
(4) Charlotte Bampfylde (1750-1807), baptised at Poltimore, 25 April 1750; married, 26 December 1774, Abel Moysey (1743-1831) of Hinton Charterhouse (Somerset), barrister-at-law, judge and MP for Bath, 1774-90, son of Dr. Abel Moysey of Bath, and had issue six sons and one daughter; buried at St Giles-in-the-Fields, Westminster (Middx), 26 December 1807;
(5) Charles Warwick Bampfylde (b. & d. 1751), born 19 February 1750/1; died in infancy and was buried, 28 February 1750/1;
(6) Sir Charles Warwick Bampfylde (1753-1823), 5th bt. (q.v.);
(7) John Codrington Warwick Bampfylde (1754-96), born in Bristol, 24 August and baptised at St Augustine, Bristol, 11 September 1754; educated at Trinity Hall, Cambridge (admitted 1771) and Lincolns Inn (admitted 1772); moved to London and led a dissolute life, but was noted as a poet; author of Sixteen sonnets (1778); subject (with George Huddesford) of a double portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1779, to whose niece, Miss Palmer, he proposed, but Sir Joshua, disapproving of the match, threw him out of his house; Bampfylde retaliated by breaking Sir Joshua's windows, for which he was sent to Newgate; his mother obtained his release, but soon afterwards he had to be confined in a private asylum; he recovered his senses in 1796 only to die unmarried of consumption later that year;
(8) Richard Warwick Bampfylde (b. & d. 1756), born at Bristol, 13 May and baptised at St Augustine, Bristol, 29 May 1756; died in infancy on 2 June, and was buried at Wraxall (Somerset), 4 June 1756;
(9) Amias Warwick Bampfylde (1757-1834), born 25 November 1757; educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge (matriculated 1775); declared a lunatic, 1781; died in London, 22 January 1834;
(10) Rev. Richard Warwick Bampfylde (1759-1834), born at Bampfylde House, Exeter and baptised at St Lawrence, Exeter (Devon), 5 February 1759; educated at Brasenose College, Oxford (matriculated 1776; BA 1781; MA 1783); ordained deacon, 1782 and priest, 1783; rector of Poltimore and of Black Torrington (Devon), 1783-1835; built a new rectory house at Black Torrington, c.1825-30; died unmarried, 15 September 1834 and was buried at Poltimore;
(11) Harriet Bampfylde (1760-99), born in Exeter, 28 June and baptised at Poltimore, 17 August 1760 and again 1 May 1770; married, 25 September 1788, Dr. George Daniell (1759-1822) of Exeter, physician, and had issue at least one son and one daughter; buried at Poltimore, 27 November 1799;
(12) Mary Frances Bampfylde (1761-84), born at Bampfylde House, Exeter and baptised at St Lawrence, Exeter, 29 November 1761 and again at Poltimore, 1 May 1770; died unmarried and was buried at Wraxall, 28 July 1784;
(13) Georgina Sophia Bampfylde (1764-1814), born 25 June 1764 and baptised at Poltimore, 1 May 1770; lived at Bampfylde House, Exeter (being the last member of the family to do so); died unmarried at Dawlish (Devon), 31 August, and was buried at Poltimore, 5 September 1814.
He inherited the Hardington, Poltimore House and Court Hall, North Molton estates from his father in 1727.
He died 15 July and was buried at Poltimore, 24 July 1776; his will was proved 31 August 1776. His widow died 15 February 1789 and was buried at Wraxall (Somerset), 24 February 1789.
Bampfylde, Sir Charles Warwick (1753-1823), 5th bt. Son of Sir Richard Warwick Bampfylde (1722-76), 4th bt., and his wife Jane, daughter and sole heiress of Col. John Codrington of Charlton House, Wraxall (Somerset), born in Bristol, 23 January 1753 and was baptised at St Augustine, Bristol on the same day. Educated at New College, Oxford (matriculated 1770; DCL), and undertook a tour of Europe with the antiquary Stephen Weston in 1773-74, visiting France (especially Paris) and Italy (Venice, Rome, Naples and Florence). He began as a Whig in politics, but gradually drifted towards the Tories in his later years in Parliament. He succeeded his father as 5th baronet, 5 August 1776. As a young man, he spent recklessly (reputedly running through £60,000 in five years) and got into debt, but a period of frugal living in Monmouthshire allowed his finances to recover: a press report in 1780 noted that "a perseverance in this laudable System, will, in the course of very few years, [enable him to] get out of the clutches of all his late persecutors, and restored to the clear possession of his patrimony": his retirement may explain his low parliamentary profile at this time. He was MP for Exeter, 1774-90 and 1796-1812, and his son claimed in 1826 that he had spent a total of £80,000 on parliamentary elections throughout his career. In 1790 he claimed he had again been 'brought face to face with ruin' after losing an election on which he had laid out £8,000. He unsuccessfully sought financial support from the Duke of Portland and the Prince of Wales, stating that "My embarrassments ... have imposed upon me a most mortifying and painful seclusion from all society ... My very humiliating situation [is] replete with every possible present inconvenience, and painful privation, and ... the greatest prospective danger [to] my personal liberty... the nature of the greater part of the pecuniary demands upon me would render a retreat to the Continent as insecure as my remaining in this country". He was an officer in 1st Somerset Militia, 1790-1809 (Lt., 1890; Capt., 1795; Maj., 1803; Lt-Col., 1807). High Sheriff of Somerset, 1820-21. A freemason and first Provincial Grand Master for Devonshire. His wife's portrait (now in the Tate Gallery) was painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds in the year of their marriage. He married, 9 February 1776 at St James, Piccadilly, Westminster (Middx) (sep. after 1780), Catherine (c.1757-1832), eldest daughter of Adm. Sir John Moore, 1st bt., and had issue:
(1) Sir George Warwick Bampfylde (1786-1858), 6th bt. and later 1st Baron Poltimore (q.v.).
He also had three illegitimate children, apparently by different mothers, who were all acknowledged and provided for in his will. The mothers of the first two are not known:
(X1) Rev. Charles Francis Bampfylde (1787-1855), born 7 February 1787 and baptised at St. Marylebone, 2 July 1788; educated at Balliol College, Oxford (matriculated 1806; BCL 1820); ordained deacon, 1810 and priest, 1811; vicar of North Molton, 1813-14; rector of Hemington-cum-Hardington (Somerset), 1814-55 and of Dunkerton (Somerset), 1820-55; chaplain to the Prince of Wales, 1814-20; a hunting and shooting squarson, he was a JP and DL for Somerset, 1831; married, 9 November 1820 at St Marylebone (Middx), Ann, daughter of John Row of Newcastle-on-Tyne and had issue two sons and three daughters; died 27 March 1855 and was buried at Hardington Mandeville; will proved 28 March 1855;
(X2) Louisa Bampfylde alias Snell (c.1801-79), born about 1801; married, 24 December 1830, Edward Francis Wells (c.1795-1874), an officer in the Royal Navy (Lt., 1829; retired as Cmdr., 1860) and from 1839 an officer in the coastguard, who was declared bankrupt in 1839 and again in 1857, and had issue four sons and two daughters; died at St Marylebone (Middx), Jul-Sept 1879;
By Catherine Howick alias Smith he had issue:
(X3) Sophia Bampfylde alias Smith; perhaps born about 1806; living in 1823.
He inherited the Hardington, Poltimore House and Court Hall, North Molton estates from his father in 1776. A fire between 1776 and 1791 largely destroyed the house at Hardington, which had not been occupied by the family for many years. After separating from her husband, Lady Bampfylde lived at a cottage orné called Grigg's Cottage, near Puckeridge (Herts).
On 7 April 1823 he was shot and fatally wounded by an ex-servant called Morland, who suspected he was having an affair with his wife, who was still in Bampfylde's employ. Morland immediately afterwards committed suicide, and after lingering painfully for nearly two weeks, Bampfylde died of gangrene, 19 April 1823; he was buried at Hardington Mandeville (Somerset), 25 April 1823. His widow died at Egham (Surrey), 20 March 1832, but was buried with her husband.
Bampfylde, Sir George Warwick (1786-1858), 6th bt. and 1st Baron Poltimore. Only legitimate son of Sir Charles Warwick Bampfylde (1753-1823), 5th bt. and his wife Catherine, eldest daughter of Adm. Sir John Moore, 1st bt., born in London, 23 March, and baptised at St James, Piccadilly, Westminster (Middx), 20 April 1786. Educated at Brasenose College, Oxford (matriculated 1804). Col. of the North Devon militia. He succeeded his father as 6th baronet, 19 April 1823. He was a Liberal in politics, but declined an invitation to stand for Parliament in Exeter in 1826 on the grounds of expense. He was an active proponent of parliamentary reform, on which account he was raised to the peerage as 1st Baron Poltimore, 10 September 1831 with a view to easing the passage of the Reform Bill through the Lords; he was also briefly a Lord-in-Waiting (Government Whip in House of Lords), 1840-41. He was a freemason from 1820. He married 1st, 2 May 1807 at St George, Hanover Square, London, his cousin Emma Penelope (d. 1835), only daughter of Rev. Ralph Sneyd, precentor of St. Asaph Cathedral and chaplain to King George IV, and 2nd, 16 March 1836 at St Mary, Bryanston Square, London, Caroline (d. 1863), daughter of Lt-Gen. Frederick Buller of Pelynt and Lanreath (Cornwall), and had issue:
(1.1) Hon. Emma Catherine Bampfylde (1810-25), born 22 June 1810; died young, 25 March 1825;
(2.1) Augustus Frederick George Warwick Bampfylde (1837-1908), 2nd Baron Poltimore (q.v.).
He inherited the Hardington, Poltimore House and Court Hall, North Molton estates from his father in 1823.
He died 19 December 1858 and was buried at Poltimore; his will was proved 5 February 1859 (effects under £70,000). His first wife died 24 December 1835 and was buried at St. Marylebone (Middx). His widow died in London, 29 May 1863; her will was proved 2 July 1863 (effects under £35,000).
Bampfylde, Rt. Hon. Augustus Frederick George Warwick (1837-1908), 2nd Baron Poltimore. Only son of Sir George Warwick Bampfylde (1786-1858), 6th bt. and 1st Baron Poltimore, and his second wife, Caroline, eldest daughter of Lt-Gen. Frederick Buller of Pelynt and Lanreath (Cornwall), born 12 April 1837. Educated at Harrow and Christ Church, Oxford (matriculated 1855). He succeeded his father as 2nd Baron (and 7th bt.), 19 December 1858. He was an officer in the Devon Yeomanry Cavalry (Maj.). A Liberal in politics until about 1880, and then a Conservative, he was sworn of the Privy Council in 1872 and served as Treasurer of the Royal Household, 1872-74. He was Chairman of the Conservative Primrose League in the 1880s and 1890s; a County Alderman of Devon County Council; High Steward of South Molton; and President of the Devon & Exeter Hospital, 1889, Exeter Constitutional Club and the West of England Institution for the Blind, 1881, 1891, 1908. He was a freemason from 1858. He married, 27 June 1858 at St George, Hanover Square, London, Florence Sarah Wilhelmine (1840-1909), second daughter of Richard Brinsley Sheridan MP of Frampton Court (Dorset), and had issue (together with a stillborn son born in 1865):
(1) Coplestone Richard George Warwick Bampfylde (1859-1918), 3rd Baron Poltimore (q.v.);
(2) Hon. Augusta Seymourina Warwick Bampfylde (1861-64), born 4 September 1861; died young, 27 January 1864;
(3) Hon. Marcia Georgina Warwick Bampfylde (1863-91), born 13 July 1863; died unmarried, 8 February 1891; will proved 26 March 1891 (effects £15,262);
(4) Hon. Charles Warwick Bampfylde (1867-1931), born 22 December 1867; educated at Eton and Jesus College, Cambridge (matriculated 1886); farmed between 1890 and 1902 but gave up finding it unprofitable; declared bankrupt, 1907; secretary of the Longford (Glos) Beagles in 1898; married, 2 June 1891 at Berkeley (Glos), Edith Annie (d. 1959), youngest daughter of Edward Browne of Berkeley, and had issue one son and three daughters; died 26 August 1931 and was buried at Canford (Dorset); administration granted to his widow, November 1931 (estate £751);
(5) Hon. Francis Warwick Bampfylde (1885-1940), born 1 February 1885; an officer in the 4th battn, Devonshire Regiment (2nd Lt., 1914) who served in First World War (wounded); District Officer in Tanganyika, 1920-40; married, 30 June 1911, Margaret Harriet (d. 1968), only daughter of Robert Martin of Belfast and had issue one son and one daughter; committed suicide, 3 December 1940.
He inherited Poltimore House and Court Hall, North Molton from his father in 1858. He sold the family's remaining 2,500 acres at Hardington in 1859. In 1883 he owned 19,883 acres in Devonshire.
He died 3 May and was buried at Poltimore, 7 May 1908; his will was proved 16 March 1909 (estate £5,865). His widow died at Hyères (France), 24 February, and was buried at Poltimore, 3 March 1909; her will was proved 13 March 1909 (estate £3,350).
Bampfylde, Coplestone Richard George Warwick (1859-1918), 3rd Baron Poltimore. Eldest son of Augustus Frederick George Warwick Bampfylde (1837-1908), 2nd Baron Poltimore, and his wife Florence Sarah Wilhelmine, second daughter of Richard Brinsley Sheridan MP of Frampton Court (Dorset), born 29 November 1859. An officer in the 1st Life Guards (2nd Lt., 1879; retired 1881) and later in Royal North Devon Yeomanry Cavalry (Capt.); JP and DL for Devon. After leaving the army in 1881 he worked for some years in the finance sector in London. He was interested in agriculture and bred shire horses and Jersey cattle which he exhibited with some success at agricultural shows, but sold his herds in 1915 to focus on food production for the war effort. He succeded his father as 3rd Baron (and 8th bt.), 3 May 1908. He married, 19 May 1881, Hon. Margaret Harriet (1856-1931), eldest daughter of Wentworth Blackett Beaumont, 1st Baron Allendale, and had issue:
(1) George Wentworth Warwick Bampfylde (1882-1965), 4th Baron Poltimore (q.v.);
(2) Arthur Blackett Warwick Bampfylde (1883-1967), 5th Baron Poltimore, born 29 November 1883 and baptised at Silkstone (Yorks WR), 10 February 1884; educated at Eton; farmed in Chile during First World War, then at Wincanton (Somerset), before emigrating to Kenya, 1935; succeeded his brother as 5th Baron (and 10th bt.), 13 July 1965; married 1st, 28 November 1916 at St Andrew, Santiago (Chile), Catherine Frances Graham (c.1864-1938), daughter of Gen. the Hon. Sir David Macdowall Fraser GCB, but had no issue; married 2nd, 4 May 1939 at Chelsea Register Office (div. 1948), Mabel Violet Blanche (d. 1957), eldest daughter of Col. Arthur Hill Sandys Montgomery of Grey Abbey (Co. Down) and formerly wife of Walter Thomas Meyrick, but again had no issue; died 10 June 1967;
(3) Violet Marcia Catherine Warwick Bampfylde (1884-1954), baptised at Silkstone (Yorks WR), 1 February 1885; appointed CBE, 1920; a Dame of Grace of the Order of St. John; married, 22 February 1906, Richard William Alan Onslow (1876-1945), 5th Earl of Onslow, of Clandon Park (Surrey), and had issue one son and one daughter; as a widow lived at Ocho Rios, St Ann (Jamaica), where she died 23 October 1954; her will was proved 15 February 1956 (estate in England, £131,996);
(4) Hugh de Burgh Warwick Bampfylde (1888-1978), 6th Baron Poltimore (q.v.).
He lived at Hartsbourne Manor, Bushey (Herts) before inheriting Poltimore House and Court Hall, North Molton from his father in 1908. He enlarged both houses soon after inheriting.
He suffered in later life from heart disease and died aged 59 on 2 November 1918; his will was proved 3 July 1919 (estate £50,487). His widow died 4 August 1931; her will was proved 10 September 1931 (estate £55,224).
Bampfylde, George Wentworth Warwick (1882-1965), 4th Baron Poltimore. Eldest son of Coplestone Richard George Warwick Bampfylde (1859-1918), 3rd Baron Poltimore, and his wife Hon. Margaret Harriet, eldest daughter of Wentworth Blackett Beaumont, 1st Baron Allendale, born 23 September 1882. Educated at Eton and RMC Sandhurst, then joined Grenadier Guards (Lt.), but petitioned for relief as an insolvent debtor in 1907 and was bankrupted (discharged in 1912). Obliged to leave his regiment, he went up to New College, Oxford (half-blue, 1910), but took no degree. During the First World War he served as an officer in the Royal North Devon Yeomanry (Capt., 1914; Maj.). He succeeded his father as 4th Baron (and 9th bt.), 2 November 1918. High Steward of South Molton; MFH of Dulverton Hunt, 1920-40 and after the division of the country as Master of West Dulverton Hunt, 1940-50 (joint-master from 1945). In 1945 he emigrated to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) following the election of a Socialist Government and never returned to England. He married 1st, 10 March 1910, Cynthia Rachel (d. 1961), only daughter of Col. the Hon. Gerald William Lascelles CB, and 2nd, 2 March 1962, Barbara Pitcairn (d. 1969), daughter of Peter Nicol of Kirkintilloch (Dunbartons.) and widow of James David Walker, and had issue:
(1.1) Hon. Coplestone John de Grey Warwick Bampfylde (1914-36), born 24 March 1914; an officer in Royal Horse Guards (2nd Lt.); died unmarried in the lifetime of his father as the result of an accident while riding in a steeplechase at Taunton races, 3 October 1936; administration of goods granted to his father, 5 December 1936 (estate £637);
(1.2) Hon. Sheila Margaret Warwick Bampfylde (1912-96), born 26 October 1912; given Court Hall, North Molton, by her father in about 1945; married, 5 January 1932 at North Molton, Maj. Sir Dennis Frederick Bankes Stucley (1907-83), 5th bt. of Hartland Abbey and Affeton Barton, and had issue two sons and four daughters; died 12 July 1996; will proved 3 January 1997.
He inherited Poltimore House and Court Hall, North Molton from his father in 1918, but broke up the estate in 1920-21, and leased the house as a school, before selling it for hospital use in 1945. He lived latterly at Bindura (Rhodesia).
He died 13 July 1965. His first wife died 6 September 1961. His widow died May 1969.
Bampfylde, Hugh de Burgh Warwick (1888-1978), 6th Baron Poltimore. Youngest son of Coplestone Richard George Warwick Bampfylde (1859-1918), 3rd Baron Poltimore, and his wife Hon. Margaret Harriet, eldest daughter of Wentworth Blackett Beaumont, 1st Baron Allendale, born 25 March 1888. Educated at Winchester and New College, Oxford (BA 1910; MA 1918). He bought a coffee plantation in Kenya before the First World War and emigrated to manage it. During the First World War he served with the King's African Rifles (Maj.) and later with the Intelligence Service. County Councillor for Wiltshire, 1937-45; Secretary (for Wilts & Glos) of British Prisoners of War Books & Games Fund, 1941-45. Once his sons had completed their education he returned to Kenya to manage another plantation but left during the Mau-Mau insurrection. He succeeded his elder brother as 6th Baron (and 11th bt.), 10 June 1967. He married, 12 August 1918, Margaret Mary (1884-1981), third daughter of Comte Gerard Gustavus Ducarel de la Pasture, 4th Marquis de la Pasture of France, and had issue:
(1) Hon. Anthony Gerard Hugh Bampfylde (1920-69) (q.v.);
(2) Capt. Hon. David Cecil Warwick Bampfylde (1924-2013) of Coombe Lea, Malmesbury (Wilts), born 3 March 1924; took over the management of the family plantation in Kenya from his father in the 1950s; married, 15 April 1950, Jean Margaret (d. 2009), daughter of Lt-Col. Patrick Kinloch Campbell, and had issue three sons; died 22 January 2013; will proved 24 June 2013.
He lived at Willesley House, Sherston (Wilts) and later at The Ancient House, Peasenhall (Suffk).
He died in Bath (Somerset) aged 90 on 26/27 March 1978; his will was proved 24 May 1978 (estate £9,964). His widow also died in Bath, aged 97, on 29 December 1981 and was buried at Poltimore; her will was proved 7 July 1982 (estate £59,934).
Bampfylde, Hon. Anthony Gerard Hugh (1920-69). Elder son and heir apparent of Hugh de Burgh Warwick Bampfylde (1888-1978), 6th Baron Poltimore and his wife Margaret Mary, third daughter of 4th Marquis de la Pasture of France, born 2 January 1920. Educated at Winchester and RMC Sandhurst. An officer in the Rifle Brigade (Capt.), who served in the Second World War but was captured at Calais and spent the rest of the war as a prisoner in Colditz. After the war, he founder the Hazlitt Gallery with Sir Jack Baer. He married, 25 October 1947, Brita Yvonne (b. 1924), daughter of Rolf Cederström, Baron Cederström, and had issue:
(1) Hon. Christine Margaret Hermione Bampfylde (b. 1948), born 19 October 1948; raised to rank of a baron's daughter, 2008; married 1st, 1970 (div. 1977) Peter William Denby Roberts (b. 1946) of Grewelthorpe (Yorks NR) (who m2, 1977, Grizel Elizabeth-Anne, daughter of Col. Anthony Gerald Way and had further issue one son), and had issue two daughters; married 2nd, 1977, Patrick Joseph Scott Plummer of Mainhouse, Kelso (Roxburghs.), and had further issue one son; now living;
(2) Mark Coplestone Bampfylde (b. 1957), 7th Baron Poltimore (q.v.);
(3) Fiona Cecilia Bampfylde (1959-65), born 13 July 1959; died young, 4 October 1965.
He lived at Boyton House, Woodbridge (Suffk).
He died in the lifetime of his father, 2 January 1969, and was buried at Boyton (Suffk); his will was proved 28 February 1969 (estate £3,531). His widow married 2nd, 9 October 1975, (Albert Norman) Guy Elmes (1920-98) and was living in 2015.
Bampfylde, Mark Coplestone (b. 1957), 7th Baron Poltimore. Son of Hon. Anthony Gerard Hugh Bampfylde (1920-69) and his wife Brita Yvonne, daughter of Baron Rudolph Cederström, born 8 June 1957. Educated at Radley. He succeeded his grandfather as 7th Baron Poltimore (and 12th bt.), 26 March 1978. Picture dealer specialising in 19th century and Impressionist art with Christie's, London, 1977-2000 (Director, 1984-2000; Deputy Chairman, 1998-2000), EAuctionRoom.com, 2000-02, and Sotheby's since 2002 (Senior Director, 2002-06; Chairman of Sotheby's, Russia and Deputy Chairman of Sotheby's Europe, 2006-date). He appeared for several years as an expert on The Antiques Roadshow (BBC TV) and has also played the familiar role of an auction house expert in the film Trance (2013). He married, 12 June 1982, Sally Anne, daughter of Dr. Norman Miles of The Old House, Caythorpe (Lincs), and had issue:
(1) Hon. Henry Anthony Warwick Bampfylde (b. 1985), born 3 June 1985; educated at Radley and Newcastle University; runs HB coaching;
(2) Hon. Oliver Hugh Coplestone Bampfylde (b. 1987), born 15 April 1987; educated at Radley and Leeds University; director of photography in advertising industry, based in Stockholm (Sweden);
(3) Hon. Lara Fiona Brita Bampfylde (b. 1990), born 14 May 1990; educated at Downe House School and Leeds University (BA 2012); with Daisy Global Ltd. jewellery, 2013-20 and now works for Hedoine.
He lives at North Hidden Farm, Hungerford (Berks) and formerly at Ridgemoor Farmhouse, Burghclere.
Now living.
Bampfylde, John (1690-1750). Second son of Hugh Bampfylde (1663?-91) of Warleigh House, Tamerton Foliot (Devon), and his wife Mary, daughter of Hugh Clifford (last of the Cliffords of Boscombe and Kingsteignton), said to have been born 8 April 1690. Educated at Christ Church, Oxford (matriculated 1708). Tory MP for Exeter, 1715-22 and for Devon, 1736-41. He may have held Jacobite sympathies, and his name was on a list of probable supporters sent to the Pretender in 1721. He married 1st, Elizabeth, daughter of John Bassett of Heanton Court, Heanton Punchardon (Devon) and 2nd, 18 October 1718 at Hestercombe chapel, Margaret (1694-1758), daughter and heiress of Sir Francis Warre (d. 1718), 1st and last bt., of Hestercombe, and had issue:
(2.1) Coplestone Warre Bampfylde (1720-91) (q.v.);
(2.2) Margaret Bampfylde (b. & d. 1721), baptised at Kingston St Mary, 10 April 1721; died in infancy and was buried at Kingston St Mary, 2 July 1721;
(2.3) Margaretta Bampfylde (1722-93) (q.v.);
(2.4) Frances Bampfylde (1723-56), baptised at Kingston St Mary, 23 July 1723; died unmarried and was buried at Kingston St Mary, 15 December 1756;
(2.5) Francis Warre Bampfylde (b. & d. 1726), baptised at Kingston St Mary, 25 February 1725/6; died in infancy and was buried at Kingston St Mary, 18 April 1726;
(2.6) Elizabeth Bampfylde (1727-1802), baptised at Kingston St Mary, 11 June 1727; died unmarried in Bath, January 1802; will proved 1803;
(2.7) Maria Bampfylde (b. & d. 1729), baptised at Kingston St Mary, 27 January 1728/9; died in infancy and was buried at Kingston St. Mary, 3 May 1729;
(2.8) Anne Bampfylde (1730-42), baptised at Kingston St Mary, 14 March 1729/30; died young and was buried at Kingston St Mary, 24 September 1742;
(2.9) Charlotte Bampfylde (1732-42), baptised at Kingston St Mary, 16 August 1732; died young and was buried at Kingston St Mary, 28 September 1742.
He inherited Hestercombe House, Cheddon Fitzpaine in right of his second wife.
He died 17 September and was buried at Kingston St Mary, 22 September 1750. His first wife's date of death is unknown. His widow was buried at Kingston St Mary, 25 June 1758.
Bampfylde, Coplestone Warre (1720-91) Only surviving son of John Bampfylde (1690-1750) of Hestercombe House, and his second wife, Margaret, daughter and heiress of Sir Francis Warre, 1st bt., of Hestercombe, born 28 February and baptised at Kingston St Mary, 21 April 1720. Educated at Blundell's School, Tiverton, Winchester College, and St John's College, Oxford (matriculated 1738), and then probably undertook a grand tour of Italy under the guidance of Thomas Patch (although a portrait done in Rome by Patch identified as of Bampfylde, and a reference in 1744 to Bampfylde having returned from unspecified travels are the only evidence of his going abroad). He evinced an interest in painting early in life, and although his training is unclear, he became a noted gentleman artist, and his style was clearly influenced by Vernet, who he could have met in Rome where Patch studied with him for six years. He exhibited paintings (chiefly landscapes) at the Society of Artists, the Free Society of Artists, and the Royal Academy between 1763 and 1783, and also made some etchings of landscapes, including a view of Hestercombe published in Collinson's History of Somerset. He was also an occasional amateur architect, and designed the Market House in Taunton in 1770-72, and presumably the Doric temple which he built at Hestercombe in 1786. Among the Arundell papers is a set of designs for a Palladian mansion at Wardour Castle, which were evidently rejected in favour of Paine's executed designs. He is best known today, however, for laying out the grounds of Hestercombe and assisting his friends Henry Hoare at Stourhead (Wilts) and Sir Charles Kemeys Tynte at Halswell (Somerset) with their landscaping works. He was also a JP for Somerset and an officer in the Somerset Yeomanry (Col.). He married, 1755, Mary, second daughter of Edward Knight of Wolverley (Worcs), ironmaster, who was a cousin of Richard Payne Knight, but had no issue.
He inherited Hestercombe House from his father in 1750, and laid out an elaborate designed landscape in the valley behind the house. At his death the estate passed to his nephew, John Tyndale.
He died 29 August 1791 and was buried at Kingston St Mary (Somerset), where he is commemorated by a monument. His widow died in December 1806, and was also buried at Kingston St. Mary.
Bampfylde, Margaretta (1722-93). Younger daughter of John Bampfylde (1690-1750) of Hestercombe House, and his second wife, Margaret, daughter and heiress of Sir Francis Warre, 2nd bt., of Hestercombe, born 1 May and baptised at Kingston St Mary (Somerset), 29 May 1722. She married, 31 December 1753, as his second wife, George Tyndale (1704-71) of Bathford (Somerset) and had issue:
(1) Margaretta Tyndale (1756-1815), baptised at St Augustine-the-Less, Bristol, 17 September 1756; married, 17 September 1785 at St Augustine-the-Less, Charles Hill (d. 1830) of Clifton (Glos), director of Bristol Dock Co., and had issue one daughter; died after a lingering illness at Wick House, Brislington (Somerset), 15 March, and was buried at St Luke, Brislington (Somerset), 22 March 1815;
(2) twin, John Tyndale (later Warre) (1757-1819) (q.v.);
(3) twin, Elizabeth Tyndale (1757-1823), baptised at St Augustine-the-Less, Bristol, 16 November 1757; died unmarried, 20 February 1823 and was buried at Bathford (Somerset), where she is commemorated by a monument; will proved in the PCC, 25 June 1823;
(4) Charlotte Maria Tyndale (1759-1814), baptised at St Augustine-the-Less, Bristol, 18 July 1759; married, 30 March 1776 at St Augustine-the-Less, Bristol, Thomas Eagles (1745-1812) of Bristol, son of William Eagles, and had issue two sons; died 20 February 1814;
(5) Thomas Bampfylde Tyndale (1762-1807) of Withiel Florey (Somerset), baptised at St. Augustine-the-Less, Bristol, 28 April 1762; an officer in the army (Lt. 1779; Capt., 1791; retired, 1797); he was a spendthrift and after selling his commission in 1797 he became wholly dependent on his elder brother's charity; he married, 2 November 1784 at St Maurice, Winchester (Hants), Anne (1759-1836), daughter of Rev. John Dennis, canon of Oxford Cathedral, and had issue three daughters; died 17 September 1807; will proved 4 March 1811.
She died in 10 January, and was buried at Bathford, 16 January 1793. Her husband was buried at Bathford, 28 February 1771.
Tyndale (later Warre), John (1757-1819). Son of George Tyndale of Bathford and his wife Margaretta, daughter of John Bampfylde (1691-1750) of Hestercombe House (Somerset), baptised at St Augustine-the-Less, Bristol, 16 November 1757. JP and DL for Somerset; High Sheriff of Somerset, 1796; an officer in the Somerset Yeomanry (Maj.; Lt-Col., 1802). Chairman of the Taunton and Somerset Hospital Charity, 1809-12 and of the Taunton Association for the Prosecution of Felons, 1819. Perhaps in part because of his support for his spendthrift brother, he ran up debts of more than £40,000 with over 100 creditors, which it was left to his daughter to pay off. He took the additional surname of Warre in 1791 as a condition of his inheritance from Coplestone Warre Bampfylde. He married, 10 January 1789 at St Augustine-the-Less, Bristol, Elizabeth (c.1757-1832), only child and heiress of John Farell of Bristol, and had issue:
(1) Elizabeth Maria Tyndale Warre (1790-1872) (q.v.).
He inherited the Hestercombe estate from his uncle, Coplestone Warre Bampfylde, in 1791.
He died of apoplexy, 21 May, and was buried at Kingston St Mary (Somerset), 27 May 1819; his will was proved in the PCC, 31 August 1819. His wife died 1 May, and was buried at Kingston St. Mary, 9 May 1832.
Warre, Elizabeth Maria Tyndale (1790-1872). Only daughter of John Tyndale (later Warre) (1757-1819) and his wife Elizabeth, daughter of John Farell of Bristol, born 7 April and baptised at St Augustine-the-Less, Bristol, 18 May 1790. She used the £24,000 she received from selling a reversionary interest in the Hestercombe estate to pay off part of her father's debts, and by frugal living paid off the rest. A strong-willed woman, defiant of convention, she is said to have made all her own clothes without reference to current fashion, making her attire 'droll in the extreme'. In middle age she became reclusive, and more markedly eccentric, but she remained a generous employer and was noted for her old-fashioned charity to the poor. She managed her estate in person and without the assistance of an agent, and kept much of her accumulating wealth in cash at Hestercombe, where some £14,000 (mostly in coin) was found after her death. Although she is said to have been beautiful as a young woman and to have had many suitors, she remained unmarried and was without issue.
She inherited the Hestercombe estate from her father in 1819, but having no heir, she sold the reversionary interest in the estate to Alexander Baring, 1st Baron Ashburton in 1822. At her death it passed to his grandson, the 4th Baron, who sold it later the same year to Lord Portman. The house contents were auctioned in October 1872. The famous gardens of Hestercombe were open to the public on Wednesdays and Saturdays 'until the privilege was abused', although the grounds themselves were not well maintained.
She died of a stroke, 27 March 1872, and was buried at Kingston St Mary (Somerset), 3 April 1872; administration of her goods (with will annexed) was granted 5 September and 23 December 1872 (effects under £30,000).
Burke's Peerage & Baronetage, 2003, pp. 3166-67; Rev. T. Hugo, 'Hestercombe', Proceedings of Someset Archaeological & Natural History Society, 1872, ii, pp. 136-76; Lord Hylton, 'The manor houses of Hardington and Vallis', Proceedings of the Somerset Archaeological and Natural History Society, 1928, pp. 78-86; B. Cherry & Sir N. Pevsner, The buildings of England: Devon, 2nd edn., 1989, pp. 688-90, 889; P. White, The watercolours of Coplestone Warre Bampfylde, 1995; P. White, 'Hestercombe' in J. Bond, Somerset Parks and Gardens, 1998, pp. 156-59; Sir H.M. Colvin, A biographical dictionary of British architects, 1600-1840, 4th edn., 2008, p.94; O. Creighton, P. Cunningham & H. French, 'Peopling polite landscapes: community and heritage at Poltimore, Devon', Landscape History, 34:2, 2013, pp. 61-86; J. Orbach & Sir N. Pevsner, The buildings of England: Somerset - South and West, 2nd edn., 2014, pp. 353-55; H. Meller, The country houses of Devon, 2015, pp. 315-16, 788-93; ODNB entries on Francis Bampfield, Thomas Bampfield; Sir Coplestone Bampfylde, 2nd bt.; Coplestone Warre Bampfylde and J.C.W. Bampfylde; http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1660-1690/member/bampfylde-sir-coplestone-1633-92; https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1715-1754/member/bampfylde-john-1691-1750; https://www.academia.edu/8448094/The_Poltimore_Estate_in_Context.
Bampfylde of Hestercombe: deeds and papers re Hestercombe estate, 1312-18th cent. [Somerset Heritage Centre, DD/GC; DD\SF; DD\AS/1-4; DD\SAS/C/795/FA41-157, PR46, PR70-71]
Bampfylde of Poltimore and Court Hall: no significant archive is known to survive
Bampfylde of Warleigh House: deeds and papers of Warleigh estate, 13th cent-1741 [Plymouth & West Devon Record Office, 407]
Or, on a bend gules, three mullets argent.
Hestercombe House, Cheddon Fitzpaine, Somerset
Hestercombe offers the visitor a wealth of interest, but it is the restored 18th century landscape garden to the north, and the famous terraced garden laid out by Sir Edwin Lutyens in 1904 and planted by Gertrude Jekyll which draw the crowds. The house itself suffered badly from heavy-handed Victorian interventions, but fortunately its earlier states are reasonably well-recorded, and its architectural development can still be discerned. The core is the medieval and 17th century house of the Warre family, which was recorded as it stood in about 1720.
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| Hestercombe House: the west front in about 1720. Image: Somerset Fire Brigade. |
This view shows an irregular L-shaped building with a mid-17th century centrepiece (which is perhaps reminiscent of that at Forde Abbey (Dorset), and straggling ranges of different periods running off to the south and north-west. A porch appears to stand in the angle between the west front and the north-west wing, and in the foreground is a detached chapel and what is thought to have been built as an orangery, but which later became the stable block.
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| Hestercombe House: detail of view by John Wootton, c.1745. |
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| Hestercombe House from the north-west, by C.W. Bampfylde. |
Coplestone Warre Bampfylde, who was an amateur architect as well as a gentleman artist, made further changes to the house, but his attention was directed more to the landscape garden north-east of the house. A canted bay window was added at the north-west corner of the house, and he may have been responsible for the further refacing of the west front in a distinctive purplish local stone.
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| Hestercombe House: the great hall before the alterations of 1872-75. |
Inside, neither John Bampfylde nor his son made a clean sweep of the interiors, and the house became (and to some extent remains) an intriguing mixture of 17th century, 1730 and later 18th century work. The great hall of the medieval house had apparently been truncated in the 17th century but it remained a barrel-vaulted two-storey space until the 1870s, with the addition of classical columns supporting the gallery, painted trophies on the walls, and a classical decorative band on the long wall. The Pillar Room combined a fine late 17th century plaster ceiling with an 18th century columned screen and bookcases. Coplestone Warre Bampfylde no doubt executed the delicate neo-classical decorative painting scheme in the drawing room.
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| Hestercombe House: the Pillar Room c.1873, with a 17th century ceiling and 18th century columned screen. |
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| Hestercombe House: the drawing room, c.1873, with decorative painting by C.W. Bampfylde. |
Few if any alterations were made to the house between the death of C.W. Bampfylde in 1791 and his great-niece in 1872. The photographs above, taken in about 1873, show that the house remained in good order despite long years of occupation by an eccentric spinster. However, when the house was sold to Lord Portman, he embarked on a radical and to modern eyes, less than judicious remodelling. Designs were first made by Henry Hall, a second-rate London architect, but these proposals were rejected in favour of a cheaper scheme by James Baker Green of Blandford Forum (Dorset). Green died soon after work was begun, and Hall was then recalled to tidy things up. He wanted to replace Green's weak attic gables and to add a large bow-fronted projection on the south side, but was restrained.
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| Hestercombe House: the house in 1953, when it was empty and about to become offices for the Somerset Fire Brigade. Image: Hestercombe Trust. |
The additions, in a loosely 'Free Renaissance' style, radically altered the west front, although with the aid of earlier views it is possible to see the Georgian house underneath. The main additions are the centrepiece with porte-cochère, and the pavilion-roofed north tower, which contains a water tank. On the south side, less was done to the existing elevations, but Green added the attics. Inside the house, the major Victorian alterations were the creation of a top-lit neo-Jacobean imperial staircase with a coved neo-Rococo ceiling and the replacement of 17th century great hall.
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| Hestercombe House: watercolour of the Pear Pond by C.W. Bampfylde. Image: Hestercombe Gardens Trust |
Coplestone Warre Bampfylde, who was a close friend of the keen landscapers Henry Hoare of Stourhead and Sir Charles Kemeys Tynte of Halswell, embarked on his own improvements soon after inheriting the estate, and continued to make further alterations until his death. His site was the steep valley east and north of the house, where he created a series of water features and decorative buildings designed to conjure the mood of a landscape painting by Claude or Poussin. A pear-shaped lake (apparently first formed in 1698 but enlarged in the 1750s) is fed by an improved stream and by the Great Cascade, a contrived but natural-seeming waterfall on one side, which Lord Palmerston in 1787 called 'a most romantic and beautiful object'. Most of the buildings were in place by the time Bampfylde's brother-in-law wrote a description of the garden in 1761, but the Great Cascade was added after Bampfylde visited William Shenstone's garden at The Leasowes in 1762,
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| Hestercombe: the Great Cascade by John Inigo Richards, from the National Trust collection, Stourhead (Wilts) Image: National Trust Images/John Hammond |
"For more than half a century little has been done even to preserve what was once so regularly ordered and exactly arranged, The woods have about them a primeval aspect. The lawns are overgrown with varied vegetation, the paths, where a hundred years ago the feet of fair ladies wandered amid a very paradise of delights, are now in some places almost obliterated...The visitor has oftentimes to gaze on landscape beauties through an umbrageous screen which all but hides them from his view, and to investigate the works of its old possessors, where his foot is impeded at every step and the air is dense with sylvan odours and heavy with the atmosphere of the forest and its verdure."
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| Hestercombe House: aerial view of the Lutyens-Jekyll garden, showing the layout. Image: Hestercombe Trust. |
The third element of the site is the formal garden created by Lutyens and Gertrude Jekyll in 1904-08. There was already a balustraded upper terrace before the south front, created in 1875-77 for Lord Portman. Below this, Lutyens excavated and levelled an area for a huge parterre, to which he provided access by additions to the terrace incorporating steps down, which lead not directly into the parterre but into a pair of long narrow flanking strips, each with a central rill flowing through it. The south side of the parterre is closed by a low pergola, which provides a sense of enclosure without obstructing the views over the landscape beyond. To the east of the upper terrace a second garden space opens: a long terrace garden with at its centre Lutyens' powerful classical Orangery of 1906-08, built of strikingly contrasted golden Ham Hill stone, slate, and red pantiles with white woodwork.
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| Hestercombe House: the Lutyens orangery. Image: Sarah Charlesworth. Some rights reserved. |
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| Hestercombe House: looking back along one of the long rills to Lutyens' steps from the top terrace. |
During the Second World War the house was used by the British and later the US army, but it seems to have avoided the usual wanton damage inflicted by resident soldiery. In 1944 the Portman family transferred the house to the Crown Estate in lieu of death duties, but an arrangement was made for Mrs. Portman to remain at the house until her death. After she died, the house was leased to Somerset County Council as a headquarters for its Fire & Rescue Service, and they remained in occupation until 2013. For much of this time, the Lutyens garden was well maintained and open to the public, although the 18th century garden was largely lost as a result of clear-felling of the valuable 18th century parkland trees by the Crown Estate in the early 1960s. Efforts to restore the 18th century garden commenced in 1992 and from 1995 the Hestercombe Gardens Trust leased the site from the Crown and began restoration in earnest. In 2013 the whole property was sold to the Hestercombe Gardens Trust for £1 and work on restoration accelerated. The house now houses a contemporary art gallery, the Column Room Restaurant and a second hand bookshop, as well as some offices. The site is also used as a wedding and events venue.
Descent: Richard Warre; to son, Richard Warre; to son, John Warre; to son, Robert Warre (fl. 1443); to son, Richard Warre (d. 1482/3); to second cousin, Sir Richard Warre; to son, Thomas Warre; to son, Richard Warre; to son, Roger Warre (d. 1615); to son, Richard Warre (1574-1638); to grandson, Sir John Warre (1636-69), kt.; to son, Sir Francis Warre (c.1659-1718), 1st bt.; to daughter, Margaret, wife of John Bampfylde (1691-1750); to son, Coplestone Warre Bampfylde (1720-91); to nephew, John Tyndale (later Warre) (1757-1819); to daughter, Elizabeth Maria Tyndale Warre (1790-1872); to Alexander Hugh Baring (1835-89), 4th Baron Ashburton, who sold 1872 to Edward Berkeley Portman (1799-1888), 1st Viscount Portman; to son, William Henry Berkeley Portman (1829-1919), 2nd Viscount Portman, who gave the house c.1895 to his eldest son and heir apparent, Hon. Edward Henry Berkeley Portman (d. 1911); to widow, Constance Portman (d. 1951); sold after her death to Somerset County Council; sold 2013 to Hestercombe Gardens Trust.
Bampfylde family, baronets and Barons Poltimore
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| Richard Bampfield (d. 1594) |
(1) Giles Bampfield; died in the lifetime of his father on a voyage to Ireland;
(2) Elizabeth Bampfield (d. c.1585); married, as the second of his three wives, George Cary (c.1543-1601) of Clovelly (Devon), but had no issue; died before 1586;
(3) Sir Amyas Bampfield (c.1559-1626) (q.v.);
(4) Richard Bampfield; probably died unmarried;
(5) Joan Bampfield; probably died unmarried;
(6) Ursula Bampfield (d. 1639); reputedly the author of 'devotional and elegiac verse'; married, 1580 (licence 10 October), Thomas Fulford (1553-1610) of Great Fulford (Devon) and had issue three sons and three daughters; buried at Dunsford (Devon), 1639; her will was proved at Exeter, 1640;
(7) Susan Bampfield; married 1st, as his second wife, John Hays of Myll, Witheridge (Devon) and 2nd, a Mr. Simcock;
(8) Mary Bampfield; married 1st, Humphrey Moore (d. c.1602) of Moore Hayes, Cullompton (Devon), son of Sir John Moore, kt., and had issue four sons and two daughters; married 2nd, c.1605, Rev. Richard Bowden (d. 1625), rector of Poltimore, 1602-07, and later vicar of Okehampton;
(9) Gertrude Bampfield; married Henry Hurding (d. 1627) of Long Bredy (Dorset) (who m2, Eliza Snow and had further issue two sons and two daughters) and had issue two daughters;
(10) Anne Bampfield; married 1st, as his second wife, Christopher Morgan (d. 1591/2) of Mapperton (Dorset) and 2nd, c.1595, John Luttrell MP (1566-1620) of London and North Mapperton (Dorset), son of Thomas Luttrell of Dunster Castle (Somerset), by whom she had four sons and one daughter;
(11) Catherine Bampfield; died unmarried;
(12) Margaret Bampfield; married William Lacy of Hartrow (Somerset).
He inherited the Poltimore estate from his father and built a new house there in about 1559.
He died 29 May 1594 and was buried at Poltimore, where he is commemorated by a monument erected by his son in 1604. His wife died 4 May 1599.
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| Sir Amyas Bampfield (d. 1626) |
(1) Richard Bampfield; died young before 1620;
(2) John Bampfield (c.1586-c.1657) (q.v.);
(3) William Bampfield (d. 1650?); inherited an estate at North Molton from his father; an officer in the Parliamentary army (Col., 1642), where he was appointed to command a regiment of foot originally raised for service in Ireland under Lord Wharton, and then transferred to the Earl of Essex’s Army; after seeing service at Braddock Down, Cornwall (18 January 1643), ‘it is possible that only a shattered remnant of the regiment returned to Plymouth’, but it was evidently at the battle of Beacon Hill (23 April 1643) and may have been part of the force routed at Stratton (16 May 1643), falling back to Exeter, where it was involved in the fighting in July and August 1643, before being disbanded later that summer; he was perhaps the man of this name buried at Bath (Somerset), 6 June 1650;
(4) Amias Bampfield (d. 1656); educated at Corpus Christi College, Oxford (matriculated 1613/4; BA 1616) and Middle Temple (admitted 1618); lived at Weston Bampfylde (Somerset); married, 17 October 1628 at Broadhembury (Devon), Agnes Willoughby and had issue at least three sons and four daughters; will proved 2 September 1656;
(5) Edward Bampfield (d. 1644); educated at Corpus Christi College, Oxford (matriculated 1616) and Middle Temple (admitted 1617); lived at Stoke Canon (Devon); inherited the disparked New Park in North Molton from his father; died in 1644;
(6) Rev. James Bampfield (d. 1663); educated at St Alban Hall, Oxford (matriculated 1620/1; BA 1621; MA 1623/4); ordained priest, 1628; rector of Black Torrington (Devon), 1628-63 and of Rattery (Devon), 1634-63; will proved at Exeter, 1663;
(7) Dorothy Bampfield (d. 1614); married 1st, Edward Hancock (c.1560-1603) of Combe Martin (Devon), clerk of the assizes, and had issue one son; married 2nd, as the second of his three wives, Sir John Dodderidge (1555-1628), kt., of Bremridge (Devon), justice of king's bench; died 1 March 1614/5 and was buried in Exeter Cathedral, where she is commemorated by a monument;
(8) Anne Bampfield; died without issue;
(9) Jane Bampfield (c.1584-1613); married, 22 November 1602 at Buckland Monachorum* (Devon), Sir Francis Drake (1588-1637), 1st bt., of Buckland Abbey, and had issue one daughter; buried 26 February 1613;
(10) Elizabeth Bampfield; died without issue.
He inherited Poltimore House from his father in 1594 and is said to have built Court Hall at North Molton (Devon).
He died 9 February and was buried at North Molton, 15 February 1625/6, where he is commemorated by a monument; an inquisition post mortem was taken, 2 March 1625/6 and his will was proved 31 March 1626. His widow is said to have died 5 February 1630.
* This was part of a double ceremony in which her brother John married Elizabeth, the daughter of Thomas Drake. All the parties were children at the time and their married lives did not begin until some years later, c.1607-10.
Bampfield, John (c.1586-c.1657). Eldest surviving son of Sir Amyas Bampfield (c.1559-1626), kt., and his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Sir John Clifton of Barrington (Somerset), born c.1586. Educated at Exeter College, Oxford (matriculated 1604) and Middle Temple (admitted 1607). MP for Tiverton, 1621 and Devon, 1628-29. He was a JP for Devon, 1627-40, 1643, 1647-50, 1651-52 and DL for Devon, 1626-39 or later; High Sheriff of Devon, 1633-34. He was Col. of the Devon foot militia by 1633. He served on many local commissions, including being a Commissioner for Piracy in Devon, 1619-20, 1624, 1630, 1637-39. By 1639 he had become disenchanted with the King's policies and joined in various critical petitions to the Crown. When the Civil War broke out in 1642 he joined his son in supporting the Parliamentarian side, although his allegiance was less certain; in 1644 (when Devon was in Royalist hands) he sued for a pardon from the king for 'treasons committed' over the past three years. He married, 22 September 1602 at Buckland Monarchorum*, Elizabeth (1592-1629), daughter of Thomas Drake of Buckland (brother of Admiral Sir Francis Drake), and had issue:
(1) Amias Bampfield (b. c.1608), probably born c.1608; educated at Middle Temple (admitted 1627); said to have died in Italy, without issue, in the lifetime of his father;
(2) Arthur Bampfield (b. c.1609), probably born c.1609; died young before 1620;
(3) Sir John Bampfield (c.1610-50), 1st bt. (q.v.);
(4) Richard Bampfield (b. c.1611), born about 1611; died young before 1620;
(5) Lewis Bampfield (c.1612-46), born about 1612; educated at Wadham College, Oxford (matriculated 1629) and Middle Temple (admitted 1630/1; called to bar, 1638); barrister-at-law; died unmarried and was buried in the Temple Church, London, 23 February 1645/6;
(6) Rev. Francis Bampfield (1615-84); said to have been born 1615; educated at Wadham College, Oxford (matriculated 1634; MA 1638); ordained deacon and priest, 1639; vicar of Rampisham (Dorset), 1639 and later also of Sherborne (Dorset) until ejected in 1662; he then set up a independent ministry but was arrested and imprisoned at Dorchester, where he adopted Seventh Day Baptist beliefs; after his release in 1671 he was again imprisoned at Salisbury for about eighteen months and then moved to Bethnal Green (Middx) where he again founded a Seventh Day Baptist church and was arrested and imprisoned three times; he published nine or ten religious works between his spells of imprisonment; he was unmarried and without issue; died in Newgate Gaol, 16 February 1683/4 and was buried at Glasshouse Yard Baptist Cemetery, Goswell Road, Clerkenwell (Middx);
(7) Alexander Bampfield (fl. 1620); living in 1620 but probably died young;
(8) Thomas Bampfield (c.1623-93), born about 1623; educated at Exeter College, Oxford (matriculated 1640) and Middle Temple (admitted 1642; called to bar, 1649; bencher, 1659); barrister-at-law; MP for Exeter, 1654, 1656, 1659, 1660; briefly Speaker of the House of Commons, 14-22 April 1659; Deputy Recorder of Exeter, 1652-54 and Recorder, 1654-60; JP for Devon, 1653-55 and 1688-89; DL for Devon, 1688; died 8 October 1693 and was buried at St Stephen, Exeter;
(9) Elizabeth Bampfield (d. c.1638); married 1st, as his second wife, John Willoughby (b. c.1578) of Payhembury and 2nd, about November 1636, as his second of three wives, Arthur Ayshford (c.1601-47) of Ayshford (Devon); died about 1638;
(10) Dorothy Bampfield (d. 1661); married Henry Worth (c.1605-80) of Worth (Devon) and had issue seven sons and six daughters; buried at Washfield (Devon), 8 March 1660/1;
(11) Joan Bampfield; probably died young;
(12) Ann Bampfield; probably died young;
(13) Ursula Bampfield; probably died young;
(14) Bridget Bampfield (1625-57), baptised at Poltimore, 7 June 1625; married, as his second wife, Col. Henry Henley MP (c.1612-96) of Leigh, Winsham (Somerset) and Colway, Lyme Regis (Dorset), and had issue two daughters; buried at Lyme Regis, 9 October 1657;
(15) Mary Bampfield (c.1626-70), born about 1626; married James Rodd (c.1611-78) of Bedford House, Exeter (Devon) and had issue at least two sons and two daughters; died 15 August 1670 and was buried at St Stephen, Exeter, where she is commemorated by a monument.
He inherited Poltimore House and Court Hall, North Molton from his father in 1626.
He made his will on 31 July 1656, and died before administration of his goods was granted in September 1657. His wife died in 1629 and he founded an almshouse at Poltimore in her memory in 1631.
* This was part of a double ceremony in which his sister married Francis, the son and heir of Thomas Drake. All the parties were children at the time and their married lives did not begin until some years later, c.1607-10.
Bampfield, Sir John (c.1610-50), 1st bt. Third, but eldest surviving, son of John Bampfield and his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Drake of Buckland, born about 1610. Educated at Wadham College, Oxford (matriculated 1629) and Middle Temple (admitted 1630). He was created 1st baronet of Poltimore, 14 July 1641. During the Civil War, he emerged as a leader of the Parliamentarian faction in Devon, but was always a moderate. MP for Penryn in the Long Parliament, 1640-48, being excluded at the time of Pride's Purge. He was Colonel of the Trained Band of north-east Devon in 1642-43, and was appointed Governor of the island and fort of St. Nicholas in Plymouth Sound, 1644. He also served as a member of the Sequestration Committee for Devon. He married, 3 May 1637, Gertrude (1611-58), daughter of Amias Coplestone and co-heir of her brother John Coplestone of Coplestone and Warleigh (Devon), and had issue including:
(1) Sir Coplestone Bampfylde (c.1638-92), 2nd bt. (q.v.);
(2) Elizabeth Bampfield, probably born c.1639; married, before 1657, as his second wife, Thomas Moore (1618-95) of Haychurch and had issue three sons and seven daughters;
(3) Gertrude Bampfield (d. by 1676), probably born c.1640; married, 21 March 1654/5, Sir William Morice (c.1628-90), 1st bt., of Werrington Park (Cornwall) (who m2, 1676 (licence 5 Sept.), Elizabeth (d. 1684), daughter of Thomas Reynell of East Ogwell), and had issue one son and three daughters; died in or before 1676;
(4) Grace Bampfield (fl. 1659-77), probably born c.1640; third daughter; married, 1659 (settlement 15 July), Sir William Bastard (c.1636-90) of Gerston, West Alvington (Devon) and had issue seven sons and three daughters;
(5) Susanna Bampfield (1641-70), baptised at Poltimore, 2 May 1641; fourth daughter; married John Giffard (d. 1712) of Brightly in Chittlehampton (Devon) (who m2, Frances Fane), and had issue; died 1670;
(6) John Bampfield (c.1642-64); educated at Magdalen Hall, Oxford (matriculated 1659); mentioned as second son in his mother's will in 1657; died unmarried and without issue, 1664;
(7) Frances Bampfield (d. 1677), probably born c.1643; fifth daughter; married, 30 March 1676 at Clyst St. George (Devon), Sir John Elwill (c.1642-1717), 1st bt., of Pinhoe, Exeter (who m2, 1682, Anne, daughter of Edmund Lee of London, saddler, by whom he had two sons and two daughters), but had no issue; will proved at Exeter, 1677;
(8) Amias Bampfield (b. 1645), baptised at St Dunstan-in-the-West, London, 31 August 1645; married, 1690 at St. Decuman's (Somerset), Arabella (d. 1732), daughter of Sir Hugh Wyndham, kt., of Kentsford, St. Decuman's, and had issue two daughters;
(9) Dorothy Bampfield (d. 1679); youngest daughter; married, by August 1673, Sir Francis Drake (1642-1718), 3rd bt., of Buckland (Devon); buried at Buckland Monarchorum (Devon), 30 January 1678/9;
(10) Lewis Bampfield (d. 1699); married, 8 April 1679 at Toller Porcorum (Dorset), Elizabeth Wykes (d. 1710), and had issue two sons and two daughters; administration of goods granted at Bristol, 6 May 1699;
(11) Richard Bampfield (b. c.1650); educated at Wadham College, Oxford (matriculated 1667); died unmarried after 1670;
(12) Ursula Bampfield; died young before 1657;
(13) Mary Bampfield; died young before 1657.
His wife inherited Warleigh House near Plymouth from her brother in 1632, and brought this property to the Bampfyldes.
He died 24 April 1650 and was buried at Poltimore, where he is commemorated by a ledger stone. His widow died 29 March 1658; her will was proved in the PCC, 29 November 1658.
Bampfield (later Bampfylde), Sir Coplestone (c.1638-92), 2nd bt. Son of Sir John Bampfield (c.1610-50), 1st bt. and his wife Gertrude, daughter of Amias Coplestone and co-heir of her brother John Coplestone of Coplestone and Warleigh (Devon), born about 1638. He succeeded his father as 2nd baronet, 24 April 1650, and came of age in about 1659. Educated at Corpus Christi College, Oxford (matriculated 1650/1), where he was noted for his 'very generous and splendid way of living'. He was a Royalist, and perhaps to distinguish himself from the Parliamentary sympathies of his father and grandfather, changed the spelling of his surname from Bampfield to Bampfylde. He was a JP for Devon, 1656-92 and MP for Tiverton in the third Protectorate Parliament, 1659. He joined in a 'remonstrance' to the Rump Parliament and in 1660 presented to General Monck a petition of right from the county of Devon, for which he was briefly imprisoned in the Tower of London. High Sheriff of Devon, 1660-61; DL for Devon, 1661-c.1687; MP for Devon, 1671-79 and 1685-87; Colonel of the Devon militia, 1660-c.1685. He opposed the policies of King James II in Parliament until he was turned out of parliament and the lieutenancy, and he initially welcomed the arrival of William of Orange, but the Revolution of 1688 went too far for him and he later refused to recognised the new King or the legitimacy of the taxes he raised (with the result that the commissioners had to destrain on his goods to secure payment). On his deathbed he enjoined his family ‘that they should always continue faithful to the religion of the Established Church of England, and be sure to pay their allegiance to the right heirs of the Crown’. He was described by a political opponent as 'much addicted to tippling', and was well over six feet tall, strongly built and handsome, with ‘a ready wit and a good judgement’. He lived beyond his income for many years, however, 'always keeping about him a great retinue and a noble equipage. He was ... of a courteous, obliging carriage to all, but very condescending to his inferiors, willing to befriend and gratify them, if in any thing they applied themselves unto him. ... In a word, he was every way a gallant gentleman, and was the honour of his time and our country' [J. Prince, Worthies of Devon, 1701]. He married 1st, 16 November 1655 at Poltimore, Margaret (d. 1671?), daughter of Francis Bulkeley of Nether Burgate, Fordingbridge (Hants) and 2nd, 1674 (licence 21 October) at Houghton (Devon) Jane (c.1654-1710), daughter of Sir Courtney Pole, 2nd bt., of Shute House (Devon) and had issue including:
(1.1) Hugh Bampfylde (1663?-91) (q.v.);
(1.2) John Coplestone Bulkeley Bampfylde (c.1659-69); supposedly the younger son; a precocious scholar; died aged 10 and was buried at Tamerton Foliot, 1669, where he was commemorated by a monument which shows him dressed as an adult scholar with a book and an elaborate inscription in Latin and Greek;
(1.3) Margaret Bampfylde; died in infancy.
He inherited Warleigh House from his father in 1650 and Poltimore House and Court Hall, North Molton from his grandfather in about 1650.
He died, reputedly of gout triggered by the stress of losing his heir, at Warleigh House, 9 February 1691/2, and was buried at Poltimore. His first wife is said to have died in 1671. His widow married 2nd, Edward Gibbons of Whitechapel (Devon) and died about September 1710; her will was proved at Exeter, 5 October 1710.
Bampfylde, Col. Hugh (1663?-91). Son of Sir Coplestone Bampfylde (c.1638-92), 2nd bt., and his first wife Margaret, daughter of Francis Bulkeley of Nether Burgate, Fordingbridge (Hants), baptised at Poltimore, 1663, but possibly born some years earlier if he was the eldest son. Probably a Colonel in the Devon militia; he attended William of Orange soon after he landed in England in 1688, but subsequently refused to accept the Revolution settlement. He was described as "a young gentleman of the sweetest temper and the greatest hopes of any other in all those parts". He married, 29 May 1684 at Kingsteignton (Devon), Mary, daughter of Hugh Clifford (last of the Cliffords of Boscombe and Kingsteignton), and had issue:
(1) Sir Coplestone Warwick Bampfylde (c.1689-1727), 3rd bt. (q.v.);
(2) John Bampfylde (1691-1750) [for whom see below, Bampfylde of Hestercombe].
He lived at Warleigh House near Plymouth.
He died 16 June 1691 after breaking his neck falling from his horse. His widow's date of death is unknown.
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| Sir C.W. Bampfylde, 3rd bt. |
(1) Mary Bampfylde (1718-62), baptised at Poltimore, 2 August 1718; married 1st, 1 July 1738, her cousin, Sir Coventry Carew (c.1716-48) MP, 6th bt. of Antony House (Cornwall); and 2nd, 27 June 1749 at Antony, Francis Buller MP (1723-64) of Morval (Cornwall), but had no issue; buried at Poltimore, 5 December 1762; will proved in the PCC, 7 May 1763;
(2) Sir Richard Warwick Bampfylde (1722-76), 4th bt. (q.v.).
He inherited Poltimore House and Court Hall, North Molton from his grandfather in 1692 and Hardington Park from his cousin Col. Warwick Bampfylde in September 1695.
He died 7 October and was buried at Poltimore, 14 October 1727; his will was proved at Exeter, 1727. His widow died 14 April and was buried at Poltimore, 23 April 1736; her will was proved 1736.
Bampfylde, Sir Richard Warwick (1722-76), 4th bt. Only son of Sir Coplestone Warwick Bampfylde (c.1689-1727), 3rd bt., and his wife Gertrude, daughter of Sir John Carew, 3rd bt., of Antony (Cornwall), baptised at Poltimore, 21 November 1722. Educated at New College, Oxford (matriculated 1739; created MA 1741). He succeeded his father as 4th baronet, 7 October 1727, and came of age in 1743. Tory MP for Exeter, 1743-47 and for Devon, 1747-76. He acted as steward of the anniversary dinner for the independent electors of Westminster, 1747. His political career was not marked by any great expense as he was returned unopposed, and he was described by one observer as a miser, known as 'Tenpenny Dick' from his desire to reduce agricultural day wages to that level. He married, 1 August 1742 at Somerset House chapel, London, Jane (1720-89), daughter and sole heiress of Col. John Codrington of Charlton House, Wraxall (Somerset), and had issue:
(1) Gertrude Bampfylde (1743-69), born 10 May and baptised at Wraxall (Somerset), 11 May 1743; married, 6 October 1768 at Poltimore, Oldfield Bowles (1739-1810) of North Aston (Oxon), amateur artist and actor (who m2, 29 October 1770, Mary, daughter of Sir Abraham Isaac Elton, 4th bt., of Clevedon Court (Somerset) and had issue one son and eight daughters), but had no issue; buried at North Aston, 3 October 1769;
(2) Elizabeth Bampfylde (1746-1834), born 15 April and baptised at St Giles in the Fields, Westminster (Middx), 9 May 1746; married, 15 January 1780 at St Laurence, Exeter, Lt-Col. John Gordon (1730-82), second son of John Gordon of Ballintaggart (Co. Down), but had no issue; lived at Hartland (Devon) and later at Stoke Cottage near Exeter; died at Beckenham (Kent), 7 April 1834; will proved 21 May 1834;
(3) Jenny Codrington Bampfylde (1748-1828), born at Bristol, 12 February and baptised at St Augustine, Bristol, 9 March 1747/8; investigated by a commission of lunacy, 1788 and declared a lunatic, 22 December 1808; died unmarried, 1828;
(4) Charlotte Bampfylde (1750-1807), baptised at Poltimore, 25 April 1750; married, 26 December 1774, Abel Moysey (1743-1831) of Hinton Charterhouse (Somerset), barrister-at-law, judge and MP for Bath, 1774-90, son of Dr. Abel Moysey of Bath, and had issue six sons and one daughter; buried at St Giles-in-the-Fields, Westminster (Middx), 26 December 1807;
(5) Charles Warwick Bampfylde (b. & d. 1751), born 19 February 1750/1; died in infancy and was buried, 28 February 1750/1;
(6) Sir Charles Warwick Bampfylde (1753-1823), 5th bt. (q.v.);
(7) John Codrington Warwick Bampfylde (1754-96), born in Bristol, 24 August and baptised at St Augustine, Bristol, 11 September 1754; educated at Trinity Hall, Cambridge (admitted 1771) and Lincolns Inn (admitted 1772); moved to London and led a dissolute life, but was noted as a poet; author of Sixteen sonnets (1778); subject (with George Huddesford) of a double portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1779, to whose niece, Miss Palmer, he proposed, but Sir Joshua, disapproving of the match, threw him out of his house; Bampfylde retaliated by breaking Sir Joshua's windows, for which he was sent to Newgate; his mother obtained his release, but soon afterwards he had to be confined in a private asylum; he recovered his senses in 1796 only to die unmarried of consumption later that year;
(8) Richard Warwick Bampfylde (b. & d. 1756), born at Bristol, 13 May and baptised at St Augustine, Bristol, 29 May 1756; died in infancy on 2 June, and was buried at Wraxall (Somerset), 4 June 1756;
(9) Amias Warwick Bampfylde (1757-1834), born 25 November 1757; educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge (matriculated 1775); declared a lunatic, 1781; died in London, 22 January 1834;
(10) Rev. Richard Warwick Bampfylde (1759-1834), born at Bampfylde House, Exeter and baptised at St Lawrence, Exeter (Devon), 5 February 1759; educated at Brasenose College, Oxford (matriculated 1776; BA 1781; MA 1783); ordained deacon, 1782 and priest, 1783; rector of Poltimore and of Black Torrington (Devon), 1783-1835; built a new rectory house at Black Torrington, c.1825-30; died unmarried, 15 September 1834 and was buried at Poltimore;
(11) Harriet Bampfylde (1760-99), born in Exeter, 28 June and baptised at Poltimore, 17 August 1760 and again 1 May 1770; married, 25 September 1788, Dr. George Daniell (1759-1822) of Exeter, physician, and had issue at least one son and one daughter; buried at Poltimore, 27 November 1799;
(12) Mary Frances Bampfylde (1761-84), born at Bampfylde House, Exeter and baptised at St Lawrence, Exeter, 29 November 1761 and again at Poltimore, 1 May 1770; died unmarried and was buried at Wraxall, 28 July 1784;
(13) Georgina Sophia Bampfylde (1764-1814), born 25 June 1764 and baptised at Poltimore, 1 May 1770; lived at Bampfylde House, Exeter (being the last member of the family to do so); died unmarried at Dawlish (Devon), 31 August, and was buried at Poltimore, 5 September 1814.
He inherited the Hardington, Poltimore House and Court Hall, North Molton estates from his father in 1727.
He died 15 July and was buried at Poltimore, 24 July 1776; his will was proved 31 August 1776. His widow died 15 February 1789 and was buried at Wraxall (Somerset), 24 February 1789.
Bampfylde, Sir Charles Warwick (1753-1823), 5th bt. Son of Sir Richard Warwick Bampfylde (1722-76), 4th bt., and his wife Jane, daughter and sole heiress of Col. John Codrington of Charlton House, Wraxall (Somerset), born in Bristol, 23 January 1753 and was baptised at St Augustine, Bristol on the same day. Educated at New College, Oxford (matriculated 1770; DCL), and undertook a tour of Europe with the antiquary Stephen Weston in 1773-74, visiting France (especially Paris) and Italy (Venice, Rome, Naples and Florence). He began as a Whig in politics, but gradually drifted towards the Tories in his later years in Parliament. He succeeded his father as 5th baronet, 5 August 1776. As a young man, he spent recklessly (reputedly running through £60,000 in five years) and got into debt, but a period of frugal living in Monmouthshire allowed his finances to recover: a press report in 1780 noted that "a perseverance in this laudable System, will, in the course of very few years, [enable him to] get out of the clutches of all his late persecutors, and restored to the clear possession of his patrimony": his retirement may explain his low parliamentary profile at this time. He was MP for Exeter, 1774-90 and 1796-1812, and his son claimed in 1826 that he had spent a total of £80,000 on parliamentary elections throughout his career. In 1790 he claimed he had again been 'brought face to face with ruin' after losing an election on which he had laid out £8,000. He unsuccessfully sought financial support from the Duke of Portland and the Prince of Wales, stating that "My embarrassments ... have imposed upon me a most mortifying and painful seclusion from all society ... My very humiliating situation [is] replete with every possible present inconvenience, and painful privation, and ... the greatest prospective danger [to] my personal liberty... the nature of the greater part of the pecuniary demands upon me would render a retreat to the Continent as insecure as my remaining in this country". He was an officer in 1st Somerset Militia, 1790-1809 (Lt., 1890; Capt., 1795; Maj., 1803; Lt-Col., 1807). High Sheriff of Somerset, 1820-21. A freemason and first Provincial Grand Master for Devonshire. His wife's portrait (now in the Tate Gallery) was painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds in the year of their marriage. He married, 9 February 1776 at St James, Piccadilly, Westminster (Middx) (sep. after 1780), Catherine (c.1757-1832), eldest daughter of Adm. Sir John Moore, 1st bt., and had issue:
(1) Sir George Warwick Bampfylde (1786-1858), 6th bt. and later 1st Baron Poltimore (q.v.).
He also had three illegitimate children, apparently by different mothers, who were all acknowledged and provided for in his will. The mothers of the first two are not known:
(X1) Rev. Charles Francis Bampfylde (1787-1855), born 7 February 1787 and baptised at St. Marylebone, 2 July 1788; educated at Balliol College, Oxford (matriculated 1806; BCL 1820); ordained deacon, 1810 and priest, 1811; vicar of North Molton, 1813-14; rector of Hemington-cum-Hardington (Somerset), 1814-55 and of Dunkerton (Somerset), 1820-55; chaplain to the Prince of Wales, 1814-20; a hunting and shooting squarson, he was a JP and DL for Somerset, 1831; married, 9 November 1820 at St Marylebone (Middx), Ann, daughter of John Row of Newcastle-on-Tyne and had issue two sons and three daughters; died 27 March 1855 and was buried at Hardington Mandeville; will proved 28 March 1855;
(X2) Louisa Bampfylde alias Snell (c.1801-79), born about 1801; married, 24 December 1830, Edward Francis Wells (c.1795-1874), an officer in the Royal Navy (Lt., 1829; retired as Cmdr., 1860) and from 1839 an officer in the coastguard, who was declared bankrupt in 1839 and again in 1857, and had issue four sons and two daughters; died at St Marylebone (Middx), Jul-Sept 1879;
By Catherine Howick alias Smith he had issue:
(X3) Sophia Bampfylde alias Smith; perhaps born about 1806; living in 1823.
He inherited the Hardington, Poltimore House and Court Hall, North Molton estates from his father in 1776. A fire between 1776 and 1791 largely destroyed the house at Hardington, which had not been occupied by the family for many years. After separating from her husband, Lady Bampfylde lived at a cottage orné called Grigg's Cottage, near Puckeridge (Herts).
On 7 April 1823 he was shot and fatally wounded by an ex-servant called Morland, who suspected he was having an affair with his wife, who was still in Bampfylde's employ. Morland immediately afterwards committed suicide, and after lingering painfully for nearly two weeks, Bampfylde died of gangrene, 19 April 1823; he was buried at Hardington Mandeville (Somerset), 25 April 1823. His widow died at Egham (Surrey), 20 March 1832, but was buried with her husband.
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| 1st Baron Poltimore |
(1.1) Hon. Emma Catherine Bampfylde (1810-25), born 22 June 1810; died young, 25 March 1825;
(2.1) Augustus Frederick George Warwick Bampfylde (1837-1908), 2nd Baron Poltimore (q.v.).
He inherited the Hardington, Poltimore House and Court Hall, North Molton estates from his father in 1823.
He died 19 December 1858 and was buried at Poltimore; his will was proved 5 February 1859 (effects under £70,000). His first wife died 24 December 1835 and was buried at St. Marylebone (Middx). His widow died in London, 29 May 1863; her will was proved 2 July 1863 (effects under £35,000).
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| 2nd Baron Poltimore |
(1) Coplestone Richard George Warwick Bampfylde (1859-1918), 3rd Baron Poltimore (q.v.);
(2) Hon. Augusta Seymourina Warwick Bampfylde (1861-64), born 4 September 1861; died young, 27 January 1864;
(3) Hon. Marcia Georgina Warwick Bampfylde (1863-91), born 13 July 1863; died unmarried, 8 February 1891; will proved 26 March 1891 (effects £15,262);
(4) Hon. Charles Warwick Bampfylde (1867-1931), born 22 December 1867; educated at Eton and Jesus College, Cambridge (matriculated 1886); farmed between 1890 and 1902 but gave up finding it unprofitable; declared bankrupt, 1907; secretary of the Longford (Glos) Beagles in 1898; married, 2 June 1891 at Berkeley (Glos), Edith Annie (d. 1959), youngest daughter of Edward Browne of Berkeley, and had issue one son and three daughters; died 26 August 1931 and was buried at Canford (Dorset); administration granted to his widow, November 1931 (estate £751);
(5) Hon. Francis Warwick Bampfylde (1885-1940), born 1 February 1885; an officer in the 4th battn, Devonshire Regiment (2nd Lt., 1914) who served in First World War (wounded); District Officer in Tanganyika, 1920-40; married, 30 June 1911, Margaret Harriet (d. 1968), only daughter of Robert Martin of Belfast and had issue one son and one daughter; committed suicide, 3 December 1940.
He inherited Poltimore House and Court Hall, North Molton from his father in 1858. He sold the family's remaining 2,500 acres at Hardington in 1859. In 1883 he owned 19,883 acres in Devonshire.
He died 3 May and was buried at Poltimore, 7 May 1908; his will was proved 16 March 1909 (estate £5,865). His widow died at Hyères (France), 24 February, and was buried at Poltimore, 3 March 1909; her will was proved 13 March 1909 (estate £3,350).
Bampfylde, Coplestone Richard George Warwick (1859-1918), 3rd Baron Poltimore. Eldest son of Augustus Frederick George Warwick Bampfylde (1837-1908), 2nd Baron Poltimore, and his wife Florence Sarah Wilhelmine, second daughter of Richard Brinsley Sheridan MP of Frampton Court (Dorset), born 29 November 1859. An officer in the 1st Life Guards (2nd Lt., 1879; retired 1881) and later in Royal North Devon Yeomanry Cavalry (Capt.); JP and DL for Devon. After leaving the army in 1881 he worked for some years in the finance sector in London. He was interested in agriculture and bred shire horses and Jersey cattle which he exhibited with some success at agricultural shows, but sold his herds in 1915 to focus on food production for the war effort. He succeded his father as 3rd Baron (and 8th bt.), 3 May 1908. He married, 19 May 1881, Hon. Margaret Harriet (1856-1931), eldest daughter of Wentworth Blackett Beaumont, 1st Baron Allendale, and had issue:
(1) George Wentworth Warwick Bampfylde (1882-1965), 4th Baron Poltimore (q.v.);
(2) Arthur Blackett Warwick Bampfylde (1883-1967), 5th Baron Poltimore, born 29 November 1883 and baptised at Silkstone (Yorks WR), 10 February 1884; educated at Eton; farmed in Chile during First World War, then at Wincanton (Somerset), before emigrating to Kenya, 1935; succeeded his brother as 5th Baron (and 10th bt.), 13 July 1965; married 1st, 28 November 1916 at St Andrew, Santiago (Chile), Catherine Frances Graham (c.1864-1938), daughter of Gen. the Hon. Sir David Macdowall Fraser GCB, but had no issue; married 2nd, 4 May 1939 at Chelsea Register Office (div. 1948), Mabel Violet Blanche (d. 1957), eldest daughter of Col. Arthur Hill Sandys Montgomery of Grey Abbey (Co. Down) and formerly wife of Walter Thomas Meyrick, but again had no issue; died 10 June 1967;
(3) Violet Marcia Catherine Warwick Bampfylde (1884-1954), baptised at Silkstone (Yorks WR), 1 February 1885; appointed CBE, 1920; a Dame of Grace of the Order of St. John; married, 22 February 1906, Richard William Alan Onslow (1876-1945), 5th Earl of Onslow, of Clandon Park (Surrey), and had issue one son and one daughter; as a widow lived at Ocho Rios, St Ann (Jamaica), where she died 23 October 1954; her will was proved 15 February 1956 (estate in England, £131,996);
(4) Hugh de Burgh Warwick Bampfylde (1888-1978), 6th Baron Poltimore (q.v.).
He lived at Hartsbourne Manor, Bushey (Herts) before inheriting Poltimore House and Court Hall, North Molton from his father in 1908. He enlarged both houses soon after inheriting.
He suffered in later life from heart disease and died aged 59 on 2 November 1918; his will was proved 3 July 1919 (estate £50,487). His widow died 4 August 1931; her will was proved 10 September 1931 (estate £55,224).
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| 4th Baron Poltimore |
(1.1) Hon. Coplestone John de Grey Warwick Bampfylde (1914-36), born 24 March 1914; an officer in Royal Horse Guards (2nd Lt.); died unmarried in the lifetime of his father as the result of an accident while riding in a steeplechase at Taunton races, 3 October 1936; administration of goods granted to his father, 5 December 1936 (estate £637);
(1.2) Hon. Sheila Margaret Warwick Bampfylde (1912-96), born 26 October 1912; given Court Hall, North Molton, by her father in about 1945; married, 5 January 1932 at North Molton, Maj. Sir Dennis Frederick Bankes Stucley (1907-83), 5th bt. of Hartland Abbey and Affeton Barton, and had issue two sons and four daughters; died 12 July 1996; will proved 3 January 1997.
He inherited Poltimore House and Court Hall, North Molton from his father in 1918, but broke up the estate in 1920-21, and leased the house as a school, before selling it for hospital use in 1945. He lived latterly at Bindura (Rhodesia).
He died 13 July 1965. His first wife died 6 September 1961. His widow died May 1969.
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| 6th Baron Poltimore |
(1) Hon. Anthony Gerard Hugh Bampfylde (1920-69) (q.v.);
(2) Capt. Hon. David Cecil Warwick Bampfylde (1924-2013) of Coombe Lea, Malmesbury (Wilts), born 3 March 1924; took over the management of the family plantation in Kenya from his father in the 1950s; married, 15 April 1950, Jean Margaret (d. 2009), daughter of Lt-Col. Patrick Kinloch Campbell, and had issue three sons; died 22 January 2013; will proved 24 June 2013.
He lived at Willesley House, Sherston (Wilts) and later at The Ancient House, Peasenhall (Suffk).
He died in Bath (Somerset) aged 90 on 26/27 March 1978; his will was proved 24 May 1978 (estate £9,964). His widow also died in Bath, aged 97, on 29 December 1981 and was buried at Poltimore; her will was proved 7 July 1982 (estate £59,934).
Bampfylde, Hon. Anthony Gerard Hugh (1920-69). Elder son and heir apparent of Hugh de Burgh Warwick Bampfylde (1888-1978), 6th Baron Poltimore and his wife Margaret Mary, third daughter of 4th Marquis de la Pasture of France, born 2 January 1920. Educated at Winchester and RMC Sandhurst. An officer in the Rifle Brigade (Capt.), who served in the Second World War but was captured at Calais and spent the rest of the war as a prisoner in Colditz. After the war, he founder the Hazlitt Gallery with Sir Jack Baer. He married, 25 October 1947, Brita Yvonne (b. 1924), daughter of Rolf Cederström, Baron Cederström, and had issue:
(1) Hon. Christine Margaret Hermione Bampfylde (b. 1948), born 19 October 1948; raised to rank of a baron's daughter, 2008; married 1st, 1970 (div. 1977) Peter William Denby Roberts (b. 1946) of Grewelthorpe (Yorks NR) (who m2, 1977, Grizel Elizabeth-Anne, daughter of Col. Anthony Gerald Way and had further issue one son), and had issue two daughters; married 2nd, 1977, Patrick Joseph Scott Plummer of Mainhouse, Kelso (Roxburghs.), and had further issue one son; now living;
(2) Mark Coplestone Bampfylde (b. 1957), 7th Baron Poltimore (q.v.);
(3) Fiona Cecilia Bampfylde (1959-65), born 13 July 1959; died young, 4 October 1965.
He lived at Boyton House, Woodbridge (Suffk).
He died in the lifetime of his father, 2 January 1969, and was buried at Boyton (Suffk); his will was proved 28 February 1969 (estate £3,531). His widow married 2nd, 9 October 1975, (Albert Norman) Guy Elmes (1920-98) and was living in 2015.
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| 7th Baron Poltimore |
(1) Hon. Henry Anthony Warwick Bampfylde (b. 1985), born 3 June 1985; educated at Radley and Newcastle University; runs HB coaching;
(2) Hon. Oliver Hugh Coplestone Bampfylde (b. 1987), born 15 April 1987; educated at Radley and Leeds University; director of photography in advertising industry, based in Stockholm (Sweden);
(3) Hon. Lara Fiona Brita Bampfylde (b. 1990), born 14 May 1990; educated at Downe House School and Leeds University (BA 2012); with Daisy Global Ltd. jewellery, 2013-20 and now works for Hedoine.
He lives at North Hidden Farm, Hungerford (Berks) and formerly at Ridgemoor Farmhouse, Burghclere.
Now living.
Bampfylde family of Hestercombe
Bampfylde, John (1690-1750). Second son of Hugh Bampfylde (1663?-91) of Warleigh House, Tamerton Foliot (Devon), and his wife Mary, daughter of Hugh Clifford (last of the Cliffords of Boscombe and Kingsteignton), said to have been born 8 April 1690. Educated at Christ Church, Oxford (matriculated 1708). Tory MP for Exeter, 1715-22 and for Devon, 1736-41. He may have held Jacobite sympathies, and his name was on a list of probable supporters sent to the Pretender in 1721. He married 1st, Elizabeth, daughter of John Bassett of Heanton Court, Heanton Punchardon (Devon) and 2nd, 18 October 1718 at Hestercombe chapel, Margaret (1694-1758), daughter and heiress of Sir Francis Warre (d. 1718), 1st and last bt., of Hestercombe, and had issue:
(2.1) Coplestone Warre Bampfylde (1720-91) (q.v.);
(2.2) Margaret Bampfylde (b. & d. 1721), baptised at Kingston St Mary, 10 April 1721; died in infancy and was buried at Kingston St Mary, 2 July 1721;
(2.3) Margaretta Bampfylde (1722-93) (q.v.);
(2.4) Frances Bampfylde (1723-56), baptised at Kingston St Mary, 23 July 1723; died unmarried and was buried at Kingston St Mary, 15 December 1756;
(2.5) Francis Warre Bampfylde (b. & d. 1726), baptised at Kingston St Mary, 25 February 1725/6; died in infancy and was buried at Kingston St Mary, 18 April 1726;
(2.6) Elizabeth Bampfylde (1727-1802), baptised at Kingston St Mary, 11 June 1727; died unmarried in Bath, January 1802; will proved 1803;
(2.7) Maria Bampfylde (b. & d. 1729), baptised at Kingston St Mary, 27 January 1728/9; died in infancy and was buried at Kingston St. Mary, 3 May 1729;
(2.8) Anne Bampfylde (1730-42), baptised at Kingston St Mary, 14 March 1729/30; died young and was buried at Kingston St Mary, 24 September 1742;
(2.9) Charlotte Bampfylde (1732-42), baptised at Kingston St Mary, 16 August 1732; died young and was buried at Kingston St Mary, 28 September 1742.
He inherited Hestercombe House, Cheddon Fitzpaine in right of his second wife.
He died 17 September and was buried at Kingston St Mary, 22 September 1750. His first wife's date of death is unknown. His widow was buried at Kingston St Mary, 25 June 1758.
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| Coplestone Warre Bampfylde, by Thomas Gainsborough |
He inherited Hestercombe House from his father in 1750, and laid out an elaborate designed landscape in the valley behind the house. At his death the estate passed to his nephew, John Tyndale.
He died 29 August 1791 and was buried at Kingston St Mary (Somerset), where he is commemorated by a monument. His widow died in December 1806, and was also buried at Kingston St. Mary.
Bampfylde, Margaretta (1722-93). Younger daughter of John Bampfylde (1690-1750) of Hestercombe House, and his second wife, Margaret, daughter and heiress of Sir Francis Warre, 2nd bt., of Hestercombe, born 1 May and baptised at Kingston St Mary (Somerset), 29 May 1722. She married, 31 December 1753, as his second wife, George Tyndale (1704-71) of Bathford (Somerset) and had issue:
(1) Margaretta Tyndale (1756-1815), baptised at St Augustine-the-Less, Bristol, 17 September 1756; married, 17 September 1785 at St Augustine-the-Less, Charles Hill (d. 1830) of Clifton (Glos), director of Bristol Dock Co., and had issue one daughter; died after a lingering illness at Wick House, Brislington (Somerset), 15 March, and was buried at St Luke, Brislington (Somerset), 22 March 1815;
(2) twin, John Tyndale (later Warre) (1757-1819) (q.v.);
(3) twin, Elizabeth Tyndale (1757-1823), baptised at St Augustine-the-Less, Bristol, 16 November 1757; died unmarried, 20 February 1823 and was buried at Bathford (Somerset), where she is commemorated by a monument; will proved in the PCC, 25 June 1823;
(4) Charlotte Maria Tyndale (1759-1814), baptised at St Augustine-the-Less, Bristol, 18 July 1759; married, 30 March 1776 at St Augustine-the-Less, Bristol, Thomas Eagles (1745-1812) of Bristol, son of William Eagles, and had issue two sons; died 20 February 1814;
(5) Thomas Bampfylde Tyndale (1762-1807) of Withiel Florey (Somerset), baptised at St. Augustine-the-Less, Bristol, 28 April 1762; an officer in the army (Lt. 1779; Capt., 1791; retired, 1797); he was a spendthrift and after selling his commission in 1797 he became wholly dependent on his elder brother's charity; he married, 2 November 1784 at St Maurice, Winchester (Hants), Anne (1759-1836), daughter of Rev. John Dennis, canon of Oxford Cathedral, and had issue three daughters; died 17 September 1807; will proved 4 March 1811.
She died in 10 January, and was buried at Bathford, 16 January 1793. Her husband was buried at Bathford, 28 February 1771.
Tyndale (later Warre), John (1757-1819). Son of George Tyndale of Bathford and his wife Margaretta, daughter of John Bampfylde (1691-1750) of Hestercombe House (Somerset), baptised at St Augustine-the-Less, Bristol, 16 November 1757. JP and DL for Somerset; High Sheriff of Somerset, 1796; an officer in the Somerset Yeomanry (Maj.; Lt-Col., 1802). Chairman of the Taunton and Somerset Hospital Charity, 1809-12 and of the Taunton Association for the Prosecution of Felons, 1819. Perhaps in part because of his support for his spendthrift brother, he ran up debts of more than £40,000 with over 100 creditors, which it was left to his daughter to pay off. He took the additional surname of Warre in 1791 as a condition of his inheritance from Coplestone Warre Bampfylde. He married, 10 January 1789 at St Augustine-the-Less, Bristol, Elizabeth (c.1757-1832), only child and heiress of John Farell of Bristol, and had issue:
(1) Elizabeth Maria Tyndale Warre (1790-1872) (q.v.).
He inherited the Hestercombe estate from his uncle, Coplestone Warre Bampfylde, in 1791.
He died of apoplexy, 21 May, and was buried at Kingston St Mary (Somerset), 27 May 1819; his will was proved in the PCC, 31 August 1819. His wife died 1 May, and was buried at Kingston St. Mary, 9 May 1832.
Warre, Elizabeth Maria Tyndale (1790-1872). Only daughter of John Tyndale (later Warre) (1757-1819) and his wife Elizabeth, daughter of John Farell of Bristol, born 7 April and baptised at St Augustine-the-Less, Bristol, 18 May 1790. She used the £24,000 she received from selling a reversionary interest in the Hestercombe estate to pay off part of her father's debts, and by frugal living paid off the rest. A strong-willed woman, defiant of convention, she is said to have made all her own clothes without reference to current fashion, making her attire 'droll in the extreme'. In middle age she became reclusive, and more markedly eccentric, but she remained a generous employer and was noted for her old-fashioned charity to the poor. She managed her estate in person and without the assistance of an agent, and kept much of her accumulating wealth in cash at Hestercombe, where some £14,000 (mostly in coin) was found after her death. Although she is said to have been beautiful as a young woman and to have had many suitors, she remained unmarried and was without issue.
She inherited the Hestercombe estate from her father in 1819, but having no heir, she sold the reversionary interest in the estate to Alexander Baring, 1st Baron Ashburton in 1822. At her death it passed to his grandson, the 4th Baron, who sold it later the same year to Lord Portman. The house contents were auctioned in October 1872. The famous gardens of Hestercombe were open to the public on Wednesdays and Saturdays 'until the privilege was abused', although the grounds themselves were not well maintained.
She died of a stroke, 27 March 1872, and was buried at Kingston St Mary (Somerset), 3 April 1872; administration of her goods (with will annexed) was granted 5 September and 23 December 1872 (effects under £30,000).
Sources
Burke's Peerage & Baronetage, 2003, pp. 3166-67; Rev. T. Hugo, 'Hestercombe', Proceedings of Someset Archaeological & Natural History Society, 1872, ii, pp. 136-76; Lord Hylton, 'The manor houses of Hardington and Vallis', Proceedings of the Somerset Archaeological and Natural History Society, 1928, pp. 78-86; B. Cherry & Sir N. Pevsner, The buildings of England: Devon, 2nd edn., 1989, pp. 688-90, 889; P. White, The watercolours of Coplestone Warre Bampfylde, 1995; P. White, 'Hestercombe' in J. Bond, Somerset Parks and Gardens, 1998, pp. 156-59; Sir H.M. Colvin, A biographical dictionary of British architects, 1600-1840, 4th edn., 2008, p.94; O. Creighton, P. Cunningham & H. French, 'Peopling polite landscapes: community and heritage at Poltimore, Devon', Landscape History, 34:2, 2013, pp. 61-86; J. Orbach & Sir N. Pevsner, The buildings of England: Somerset - South and West, 2nd edn., 2014, pp. 353-55; H. Meller, The country houses of Devon, 2015, pp. 315-16, 788-93; ODNB entries on Francis Bampfield, Thomas Bampfield; Sir Coplestone Bampfylde, 2nd bt.; Coplestone Warre Bampfylde and J.C.W. Bampfylde; http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1660-1690/member/bampfylde-sir-coplestone-1633-92; https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1715-1754/member/bampfylde-john-1691-1750; https://www.academia.edu/8448094/The_Poltimore_Estate_in_Context.
Location of archives
Bampfylde of Hestercombe: deeds and papers re Hestercombe estate, 1312-18th cent. [Somerset Heritage Centre, DD/GC; DD\SF; DD\AS/1-4; DD\SAS/C/795/FA41-157, PR46, PR70-71]
Bampfylde of Poltimore and Court Hall: no significant archive is known to survive
Bampfylde of Warleigh House: deeds and papers of Warleigh estate, 13th cent-1741 [Plymouth & West Devon Record Office, 407]
Coat of arms
Or, on a bend gules, three mullets argent.
Notes about missing information and help wanted with this entry
- If anyone can provide images of the interior of Poltimore House before it passed into institutional use and then dereliction, I would be very pleased to receive them.
- I would be most grateful if anyone can provide additional genealogical or career information about the earlier generations of this family.
- If anyone can supply further portraits or photographs of people named in bold above for inclusion in this account, I should be very pleased to receive them.
- As always, any additions or corrections to the account given above will be gratefully received and incorporated.
Revision and acknowledgements
This post was first published 15 December 2018 and was updated 1 December 2020 and 10 April 2024.
looking for information on Annie Bampfylde, died 2 years 7 days in 1866.
ReplyDeleteWe have a poem written by her father? at her burial?