(642) Blackburn of Hayne

This family came to affluence as one of the leading wine exporters on the Portuguese island of Madeira. Their business at Quinta da Palmeira was established in 1784 by Henry Blackburn, and was inherited by the brothers Robert and George Blackburn, who it seems probable were his nephews. Robert Blackburn (1779-1841), with whom the genealogy below begins, was perhaps responsible for building the rather English-looking house at Quinta da Palmeira, where he lived with his family for much of the early 19th century.

Quinta da Palmeira, Madeira, in 1843.

He then moved back to England, taking a house a Clapham (Surrey) and establishing a wine importing business at 58 Old Broad St., London. In 1810, Robert married Mary Bellas (1783-1829), who had recently inherited the Brampton Hall estate near Appleby (Westmld) from her uncle, the Rev. Lancelot Bellas, although the hall itself had fallen out of gentry use long before and was never occupied by the Blackburns. Robert and Mary had four sons and three daughters. Their eldest son, the Rev. Robert Blackburn (1812-99), who inherited the Brampton estate, was sent to Oxford and became a Fellow of Brasenose College before taking holy orders and serving as rector of Selham (Sussex) for more than fifty years. The next two sons, Edward Blackburn (1815-87) and Herbert Cautley Blackburn (1816-76), inherited their father's wine importing business, although their interests in Madeira were probably sold in the 1840s. Instead, the brothers opened a wine merchant's business in New York (USA), and acquired a house in Brooklyn which became their American base for the next half century. Edward seems to have managed the New York business and Herbert the London company. Their youngest brother, Henry Leith Blackburn (1822-1905) was never involved in the wine business, but joined the East India Company's Bengal Army. He retired from this service in 1856 and thereafter exhibited increasingly erratic behaviour, which be blamed on sunstroke in India. After a string of prosecutions for indecent assault on young women, he was confined for much of his life in a lunatic asylum.

Edward Blackburn spent much of the 1840s and 1850s living in New York and developing his wine merchant business, although he is known to have made several trips home during this time. By 1855, he evidently felt that the business could be left in the hands of a manager, and he returned to England full-time. After renting houses in south Devon for a number of years, in 1867 he purchased the Hayne estate at Stowford (Devon), where an attractive early 19th century Gothick house had been built about fifty years before. According to one account, the house had been damaged by fire in the 1860s, and repairs were not quite complete at the time of the sale, but I have been unable to find any evidence of a fire, although there do seem to have been alterations and additions to the house at this time. Edward Blackburn and his wife Charlotte Brooking had a large family of six sons and four daughters. Their eldest son, Edward Brooking Blackburn (1844-1900) was born in New York and educated at Oxford, but was largely cut out of his father's will, being left only a modest (and discretionary) annuity.

Donhead Hall, Donhead St Mary, from the sale particulars of 1943. 

It is unclear what caused the rift between them, but the result was that the next surviving son, Arthur Blackburn (1849-1930), was sent to New York to manage the family business in the 1870s, and eventually inherited the Hayne estate, while the younger sons received increased cash bequests. Ernest Murray Blackburn (1856-1943) gave up his post as assistant master at Westminster and used his legacy to found his own prep school at Park House, Southborough (Kent); while Harold Bellas Blackburn (1859-1942) later gave up the tenancy of one of the Stowford farms and bought Donhead Hall at Donhead St. Mary in 1896, which was sold in 1943 following his death. Edward's third daughter, Laura (c.1854-1937), married the rector of Stowford, whose father, the Rev. John Bidlake Woolocombe, published a volume of reminiscences which is one of our chief sources for the history of Hayne and the families associated with it.

Arthur Blackburn (1849-1930), who inherited Hayne in 1887, married in 1875 Manuela Stubbs, the half-Peruvian daughter of an English merchant. She bore him a son and two daughters, but in 1885 she applied for a divorce on the grounds of his cruelty and adultery. Her application was withdrawn and instead she agreed a separation from him in 1886. For some twenty years she maintained her own household with her daughters. In 1906 she again applied to the courts for a judicial separation and alimony after further evidence of his persistent adultery, and this was granted, but by 1911 she was again living with her husband at a house called Rock End in Torquay. Hayne seems to have been let or unoccupied at this time, and Arthur sold it in 1923. Rock End remained the couple's home until their deaths in 1930 and 1934, and was then sold. Their son moved permanently to New York in about 1904, where he was employed in a  stockbroking firm; their elder daughter married a retired New York stockbroker who had settled in Bermuda, but after his death returned to Devon and rather improbably married a Plymouth ironmonger; and their younger daughter lived all her adult life at Paignton (Devon), where she died unmarried in 1963.

Hayne, Stowford, Devon

There has been a residence on the estate since shortly after the Norman Conquest, when the Hayne family built Stowford Castle on high ground to the east of the present house. In the mid 16th century John Harris, serjeant-at-law, 'fairly rebuilded his house at Hayne', making 'a gentile and commodious dwelling for himself and his posterity', and reusing stone from the old castle. Nothing is known of the form of the Tudor house, although it has been suggested that the present service wing may incorporate parts of the building, and the foundations of outbuildings have been discovered north-east of the house. It was a large mansion, being taxed on 26 hearths in 1674, making it the third or fourth largest house in the county.

Hayne, Stowford: engraving of the house from the north-east in about 1850

The present house was built in the first decade of the 19th century for Isaac Donithorne (later Harris), and was evidently completed by 1810. It has distinct similarities to nearby Lifton Park, begun in 1815, and it seems likely that the two houses were designed by the same person; both houses had belonged to the Harris family, although by the early 19th century they had descended through the female line to men who added the Harris name to their patronymic. In his 1898 memoir, From morn till eve, the Rev. John Bidlake Woollocombe, who lived at Stowford and came from gentry family of Great Bidlake, stated that Lifton was designed by George Webber, a relative of the owner, who is not recorded as an architect, and must have been a gentleman amateur. Both houses seem slightly old-fashioned for their date in the limited extent to which they are influenced by the more archaeological approach to Gothic design that became popular in the early 19th century, and there is an amateurish feel about the eclectic choice of motifs used in the designs. Webber therefore seems a more likely candidate than Sir Jeffrey Wyatville (whose authorship of Hayne was first asserted by Sabine Baring-Gould in 1919). Wyatville's career is well documented, and there is nothing to connect him with these houses except that he designed Endsleigh Cottage, a few miles south of Lifton, for the Duke of Bedford in 1810.

Hayne, Stowford: the entrance front in 1984, when the house was semi-derelict.
Image: Nicholas Kingsley. Some rights reserved.

The rubble stone entrance front faces north-east and is balanced in outline but not symmetrical in detail. Its nine bays are grouped 2-1-3-1-2, and are united by a castellated parapet, with angled buttresses at the corners, topped with pinnacles. Set into the walls are varied Gothick windows with robust but un-historical tracery, some of it executed in timber. 

Hayne, Stowford: the house from the south in the late 19th century. The pyramid-roofed tower is absent from the earlier engraving
 and was presumably added in the work of the 1860s.

The south-east and south-west fronts use the same palette of castellations, buttresses and tracery, but have three central bays flanked by a tower at one end and a gabled bay at the other. The north-west side forms the service wing and is an irregular L-shape, with a turret in the angle. It overlooks the kitchen court and the kennels and stables which formed the raison d'être of the estate in the early 19th century. There are reports of a fire in the 1860s, and there seem to have been additions at that time - including a pyramid-roofed tower - but it was apparently financial difficulties which forced the sale of the house in 1864, and the repairs are said to have been unfinished at that time. By 1898, the reception rooms were divided between the ground and first floors, and Woollocombe describes the hall, billiard room and dining room being on the ground floor, with the library and drawing room on the first floor, but the internal layout has been further altered since then.

In the later 20th century the house was caught up in an unfortunate family dispute between two branches of the Chichester family, one of whom wished to sell while the other did not, with the result that house rapidly decayed and the grounds were completely neglected. In 1987 Hayne was described as 'semi-ruinous', but the shell was restored over the next five years by Mr & Mrs Brian Richardson, who stripped out many of the decayed interior fittings. In 1994 they sold the estate to the Earl and Countess of Stockton, who embarked on a comprehensive programme of restoration, creating new interiors within the historic shell to the designs of Michael Brooke. The most striking of the new rooms is the remodelled entrance hall, which was given a rib-vaulted Gothick ceiling rising from slender colonettes executed in plasterwork by Hales & Howe of Bristol. At the same time, a long L-shaped galleried library was created out of former service accommodation to the right of the hall. In the south-east corner of the house is the former dining room, which retains a timber-ribbed ceiling and a Gothick chimneypiece, moved here from the hall. Between the dining room and the hall is the main staircase, converted from its original imperial form into a cantilevered dog-leg flight built with slate treads, iron balusters, and a brass rail. The Gothick theme of the house is continued by arched screens on the landing and the details of the skylights. On the first floor the former drawing room has become a ballroom, linked by folding doors to the library next door; both rooms retain their ribbed ceilings and chimneypieces, although the panelling was a casualty of 20th century neglect.

Hayne, Stowford: the house and grounds in 1883 from the Ordnance Survey 1st edn 25" plan

The Tudor house at Hayne was evidently accompanied by a terraced garden, of which some traces were recorded on the first Ordnance Survey 25" plan in 1883. What exists today, however, is the result of a landscaping scheme carried out for Christopher Harris in the early 19th century, and restored and enhanced for the Stocktons around 2000. Harris' ruling passion was hunting (he was a friend of the hunting parson, the Rev. Jack Russell), and in a shallow old quarry in the Wilderness, he created a curious structure which was known as St. Hubert's Hall.

"St Hubert's Hall", Hayne in 1984: the monument to a shared passion for hunting created in the early 19th century by Christopher Mohun-Harris. 
Image: Nicholas Kingsley. Some rights reserved.

This consisted of 22 granite seats set in a circle, each dedicated to one of his hunting companions; according to Woollacombe 'the seats presented a picturesque appearance and were ornamented with a flat wooden fox's head and coat of arms at their back', while over each seat was hung a flag bearing the arms, motto and residence of the stallholder. It is not clear whether gatherings at St Hubert's Hall were abandoned after Harris gave up hunting in 1834, perhaps in response to the death of his huntsman, who was eaten alive by the hounds in the estate kennels. The other main survival in the grounds is a grotto, built of cyclopean masonry, with a shallow pedimental gable and a rustic entrance arch. Inside there were niches around the walls and a vault faced with flints and shells. Woollocombe also mentions a pagoda and a temple in the grounds, but no trace of these remains.

Hayne, Stowford: the grotto in 1984.  Image: Nicholas Kingsley. Some rights reserved.

Descent: John Harris (1507-51); to son, William Harris (c.1526-91); to son, Arthur Harris (1561-1628); to son, John Harris (c.1586-1657); to son, Sir Arthur Harris (d. 1686), 1st bt.; to first cousin once removed, Christopher Harris (fl. 1718); to son, John Harris (d. 1767); to brother, William Harris; to son, Christopher Harris (d. 1775); to son-in-law, Isaac Donithorne (later Harris) (d. 1848); to son, Christopher Harris Mohun Harris (1801-86), who sold 1864 to Edward Blackburn (1815-87); to son, Arthur Blackburn (1849-1930), who sold 1923 to Mrs Lillian Wingfield; sold 1951 to Gp. Capt. Chichester... sold 1987 to Mr & Mrs Brian Richardson; sold 1994 to Alexander Daniel Alan Macmillan (b. 1943), 2nd Earl of Stockton; sold 2007

Blackburn family of Hayne

Blackburn, Robert (1779-1841). Son of John Blackburn (1733-98) of Sneaton (Yorks) and his wife Bethiah Turner, born 11 June 1779. Wine merchant at Quinta da Palmeira on the island of Madeira, in partnership with his brother George and in succession to Henry Blackburn, who founded the house in 1784 and may have been his uncle. He married, 3 March 1810 at St Chad, Rochdale (Lancs), Mary (1783-1829), daughter of Rev. Thomas Bellas of Rochdale and Long Marton (Westmld.), and had issue:

(1) Mary Eleanor Blackburn (1811-92), born 3 August, and baptised at the English church, Madeira, 26 August 1811; married, 17 January 1838 at St Mark, Kennington (Surrey), Robert Chapman (c.1803-80), of Old Charlton, Greenwich (Kent), inspector general of customs, son of Robert Chapman, gent., and had issue at least one son and three daughters; probably the woman of this name who died at Weymouth (Dorset), 24 July, and was buried at Semington (Wilts), 29 July 1892;

(2) Rev. Robert Blackburn (1812-99), born 17 October and baptised at the English church, Madeira, 29 October 1812; educated at Sherborne School, Queen's and Balliol Colleges, Oxford (matriculated 1830; BA 1834); Fellow of Brasenose College, 1834-44; ordained 1838; rector of Selham (Sussex), 1842-99; inherited the Brampton estate from his father in 1841; married, 11 April 1844 at North Cadbury (Som.), Eliza Frances (1810-75), younger daughter of Charles Casper Clutterbuck of North Cadbury, and had issue one son and two daughters; died 17 January 1899; will proved 20 February 1899 (estate £10,764);

(3) Edward Blackburn (1815-87) (q.v.);

(4) Herbert Cautley Blackburn (1816-76), born 16 December and baptised at the English church, Madeira, 25 December 1816; succeeded to his father's business as a Madeira wine merchant in Old Broad St., London; admitted a freeman of the city of London, 1856; married 1st, 22 June 1851 at St Paul, Edinburgh, Catherine (d. 1855), niece of Sir William Allan RA PRSA (1782-1850), artist, and 2nd, 12 December 1860 at Edinburgh, Alice Horner (1836-91), daughter of Robert Nasmyth of Edinburgh, by whom he had two sons and two daughters; died 25 June 1876 and was buried at Paddington Old Cemetery (Middx); will proved 16 October 1876 (effects under £18,000);

(5) Emma Blackburn (1818-58?), born 20 April and baptised at the English church, Madeira, 30 April 1818; married, 16 February 1841 at Kennington (Surrey), Edward Digby Bickerton Murray (1812-76), of Liverpool and later of Portsea (Hants), insurance broker and later wine merchant (who m2, 20 December 1864 at Cheetham (Lancs), Mary (1821-91), daughter of William Holdsworth), son of Admiral Robert Murray (c.1763-1834), and had issue two sons; probably the Emma Murray who died in Liverpool in 1858;

(6) Henry Leith Blackburn (1822-1905), born in Madeira, 12 February 1822; educated at Sherborne and Winchester; an officer in the East India Co.'s Bengal Army (Ensign, 1842; Lt., 1844; Capt., 1852; retired 1856), who was court martialled for 'conduct unbecoming' in 1848 and severely reprimanded; he later claimed to have suffered from sunstroke in India with permanent effects on his mental health, and he spent periods in mental hospitals at Hackney and Carmarthen; he was prosecuted for indecent assault and exposing himself on three occasions, in 1859, 1869 and 1873, and on the last occasion was sentenced to three months in prison with hard labour, but was removed to the Royal India Lunatic Asylum, Ealing (Middx), where he seems to have spent much of the rest of his life; he died unmarried in the Royal Naval Hospital, Great Yarmouth (Norfk), 9 April, and was buried at Great Yarmouth,14 April 1905; administration of goods granted 1 July 1905 (estate £5,281);

(7) Frances Elizabeth Blackburn (1823-61), born 15 October 1823 and baptised at Holy Trinity, Clapham (Surrey), 7 April 1824; lived in an all-female household at Bishop Tawton (Devon), and died unmarried, June 1861.

He lived at Quinta da Palmeira on the island of Madeira, and later at Clapham Rise (Surrey). He bequeathed his estate in Madeira to his brother and nephew, as trustees for sale. In 1809 his wife inherited, from her uncle, Rev. Lancelot Bellas, the manor house of Brampton Hall nr Appleby (Westmld).

He died 22 January, and was buried at Clapham (Surrey), 27 January 1841; his will was proved in the PCC, 19 March 1841. His wife died 17 May 1829.

Blackburn, Edward (1815-87). Second son of Robert Blackburn (1779-1841) and his wife Mary, daughter of Rev. Thomas Bellas of Rochdale (Lancs) and Long Marton (Westmld.), born 9 June and baptised at St George, Bloomsbury (Middx), 1 July 1815. Educated at Sherborne. Wine importer in New York (USA) and London. He married, 11 July 1843 at Dartmouth (Devon), Charlotte (1822-1919), daughter of Nicholas Brooking of Dartmouth, and had issue:

(1) Edward Brooking Blackburn (1844-1900), born at Brooklyn, New York, 5 April 1844; educated at Marlborough and Brasenose College, Oxford (matriculated 1863; BA 1868; MA 1899); lived at Stowford Cottage; excluded from his father's will apart from a discretionary annuity of no more than £500 a year; died unmarried in Florence (Italy), 4 December 1900; administration of goods granted to his eldest sister, 22 January 1901 (estate £192);

(2) Emma Brooking Blackburn (1845-1919), born 4 October and baptised at St Saviour, Dartmouth, 31 October 1845; lived in Westminster (Middx); died unmarried at Brighton (Sussex), 11 May 1919; will proved 28 July 1919 (estate £26,300);

(3) Henry Blackburn (1847-48), born about February 1847; died in infancy at Brooklyn, New York, 14 November 1848;

(4) Arthur Blackburn (1849-1930) (q.v.);

(5) Mary Charlotte Blackburn (1851-1947), born in New York, 28 February 1851; married, 25 September 1905 at St Peter, Bournemouth (Hants), Henry Francis Garnier le Patourel (1871-1906), son of Messurier le Patourel, of St Peter Port (Guernsey), journalist, but had no issue; died aged 96 on 17 September 1947 and was buried at Torquay (Devon); will proved 9 January 1948 (estate £65,887);

(6) Laura Blackburn (c.1854-1937), born in the USA; married, 2 January 1878 at Christ Church, Lancaster Gate, Paddington (Middx), Rev. John Henry Bidlake Wollocombe (1854-1930) of Stowford (Devon), son of Rev. John Bidlake Wollocombe of Great Bidlake (Devon), vicar of Lamerton (Devon), and had issue four sons; died 4 January 1937; will proved 16 February 1937 (estate £7,858);

(7) Alice Maud Blackburn (1855-1939), born in New York, 7 March 1855; married, 30 April 1881 at St Augustine, Queen's Gate, South Kensington (Middx), as his second wife, Stephen Roland Woulfe (1822-99) of Tiermaclane House* (Co. Clare) and London, and had issue one son (who died young) and one daughter; as a widow lived at Shaftesbury (Dorset); died 18 October 1939 and was buried at Donhead St Mary (Wilts); will proved 2 January 1940 (estate £56,521);

(8) Ernest Murray Blackburn (1856-1943), born 26 November 1856 and baptised at West Teignmouth (Devon), 26 January 1857; educated at Winchester and Corpus Christi College, Oxford (matriculated 1876; BA 1880; MA 1882); schoolteacher; assistant master at Westminster, 1881-86; headmaster of Park House Preparatory School, Southborough (Kent), 1887 (retired by 1901); married, 28 July 1891 at St Mark, Broadwater, Frant (Sussex), Fanny Julia (1870-1954), third daughter of George James Greystone Reid, and had issue two sons and four daughters; died 13 February 1943; will proved 9 July 1943 (estate £4,475);

(9) Harold Bellas Blackburn (1859-1942), born 6 July and baptised at West Ogwell (Devon), 24 July 1859; educated at Winchester College; purchased Donhead Hall, Donhead St Mary (Wilts), in 1896 and lived there until his death**; married, 1 January 1895 at St John, Bathwick (Som.), Constance Verena (1869-1956), younger daughter of Rev. Richard Thomas Blagden (1826-98), vicar of Broadwoodwidger (Devon), and had issue two daughters; died 25 January 1942; will proved 28 May 1943 (estate £14,952);

(10) Robert Blackburn (1860-1926), born 28 July and baptised at West Ogwell, 14 October 1860; merchant; said to have married but had no issue; died at Levallois-Perret, Paris (France), 6 October 1926.

In 1861 he was living at West Ogwell (Devon). He purchased the Hayne estate at Stowford in 1867.

He died 27 August, and was buried at Stowford, 1 September 1887; his will was proved 9 January and 14 March 1888 (effects £92,117). His widow lived latterly in London and died aged 96 on 26 February 1919; administration of her goods was granted 12 November 1919 (estate £30,901).

* Tiermaclane House was in ruins by 1840, possibly following a fire. 

** It was sold in 1943, following his death.

Blackburn, Arthur (1849-1930). Third son of Edward Blackburn (1815-87) and his wife Charlotte, daughter of Nicholas Brooking of Dartmouth (Devon), born 21 August 1849. Manager of his father's wine importing business in New York (USA) in the 1870s. His wife sought a divorce in 1885 but withdrew her petition and agreed a separation the following year; she was granted a judicial separation in 1906 on the grounds of his repeated adultery with Bessie Pengelly (a servant at Hayne) and Maria Augusta Dalton, but had returned to live with her husband by 1911. He married, 4 August 1875, at St James, Paddington (Middx), Manuela Georgina Alice (1853-1934), second daughter of Charles Edward Stubbs of Arequipa (Peru) and later of London, and had issue:

(1) Claud Arthur Charles Blackburn (1876-1941), born in New York 15 June 1876 but was brought to England by his parents; returned to New York about 1904; employed as clerk at Chisholm & Chapman, stockbrokers, on Broadway, New York; married, 12 November 1902 at the Church of the Resurrection, Richmond Hill, New York, Edna Isobel Summerfield (1875-1953), but had no issue; lived at Brooklyn, New York, and died there 25 April 1941; will proved 13 December 1945 (estate in England, £13,647);

(2) Violet Ethel Blackburn (1877-1965), born 9 September and baptised at All Saints, Margaret St., Marylebone (Middx), 5 October 1877; married 1st, 10 May 1923 at the Church of the Transfiguration, New York, Alexander Ewing Tucker (1852-1934) of Paget (Bermuda), a retired American stockbroker and a member of the Bermudan Parliament; and 2nd, 19 November 1941 at St Jude, Plymouth (Devon), as his second wife, (Thomas) Harold Hearn Martin (1886-1967); died 13 March 1965; will proved 14 March 1966 but subject of a Chancery order, 28 April 1967 (estate £7,146);

(3) (Kathleen) Olive Blackburn (1884-1963), born 1 September and baptised at Stowford, 19 October 1884; educated at Queen Anne's School, Caversham (Oxon) and Kensington High School (Middx); lived at Paignton (Devon) and was president of Paignton Cage Bird Fanciers' Society, 1942-48; died unmarried, 2 February 1963; will proved 10 April 1963 (estate £14,968).

He inherited the Hayne estate from his father in 1887, but sold it in 1923. He was already resident at Rock End, Torquay in 1911; it was sold by the executors of his widow in 1935.

He died 1 April 1930 and was buried at Torquay Cemetery; his will was proved 27 May 1930 (estate £34,040). His widow died 5 November 1934 and was buried with her husband at Torquay Cemetery; her will was proved 11 March 1935 (estate £3,621).

Principal sources

Burke's Landed Gentry, 1952, p. 194; Rev. J.B. Woollocombe, From morn till eve, 1898; B. Cherry & Sir N. Pevsner, The buildings of England: Devon, 2nd edn., 1984, pp. 465-66; H. Meller, The country houses of Devon, 2015, pp. 496-98;

http://www.rawes.co.uk/families/brooking/brookingmanuscript.htm. 

Location of archives

No significant accumulation is known to survive.

Coat of arms

None recorded.

Can you help?

• Can anyone provide evidence for the fire that is supposed to have occurred at Hayne in the 1860s, or what was done by way of post-fire reconstruction?
• Does anyone know what caused the rift between Edward Blackburn (1815-87) and his eldest son, Edward Brooking Blackburn?
• Can anyone provide portraits or photographs of the people whose names appear in bold above, for whom no image is currently shown?
• If anyone can offer further information or corrections to any part of this article I should be most grateful. I am always particularly pleased to hear from current owners or the descendants of families associated with a property who can supply information from their own research or personal knowledge for inclusion.

Revision and acknowledgements

This post was first published 9 August 2026.