MONASTIC LANDS 1536-1558

Monastic Lands 1536-1558

Devon Monastic Lands Calander of Particulars for Grants 1536 to 1558 by  Joyce Youing.     Pub;Torquay & Devonshire Pres; Torquay 1955

NOTES Most of the monastic records were lost although a few found their way to the Public record Office at Kew

To sell off  the monastic lands Henry VIII  gained by the Dissolution of  the Monasteries  the Court of Augmentations was created.
Thomas Audley, England's Lord Chancellor  created the dissolution project  with the deeply corrupt  Richard Rich as head of the Court of Augmentations.  
Richard Rich  had a reputation for immorality, financial dishonesty, double-dealing, perjury and treachery rarely matched in English history.  
The historian Hugh Trevor-Roper said he was  "a man of whom nobody has ever spoken a good word"

Through  this office the squirarchy paid the full price for monastic property ,
such men would not have had the large sums of cash available but they purchased what they could.

John Lord Russell had an usually large grant made to him- it seems he was expected to exercise local leadership in troublesome parts of England ( such as the south west) He got Tavistock Abbey, the hundred of the borough and the rents from Tavistock town;  the manors and barton farms of Hurdwick.  Hurdwick Farm is about 1¼ miles to the North West of Tavistock, on the minor road that leads to Brentor;  Morwell & Morewellham  in Tavistock ; Milton Abbey with Leigh Manor;  Holyeat in Brentor; Week in Milton Abbot  & Ottery in Hammerdon

Richard Pollard ; Sir Richard Grenville, Sir William Petre and Thomas Carew received abatements in the purchase price of their grants

Grenville in 1539  put in a shared case for the gift of a Cornish property which was refused but by 1541 had bought Buckland Abbey at a reduced price when men with more influence had received no favours.

Anthony Harvey was careful about what he bought & received Priorton Barton a small manor near Tiverton which had been part of Plympton Priory. Harvey was Russells deputy in 1540 and he added to his Devonshire wife's estate with a compact group of monastic  manors in Mid Devon paying the full rate for them. Some went into partnership and most were spending money made in the kings service.

 Fulford with Humphrey Colles; Hugh Stukely with George Heyson speculated in a modest way. More extensive purchases were made by Devon lawyers and royal officials.

Sir Thomas Dennis of Holcombe Burnell Sheriff of the country and Chancellor to the queen, Anne of Cleves ,also held  the manors of Littleham and Exmouth which had belonged to Sherbourne Abbey. He also got Buckfast Abbey site & buildings ; property in Dunsford which had belonged to St Nicholas Priory in Exeter.

 Shebourne Abbey later was gifted by Elizabeth I  to Sir Walter Raleigh

John Southcott  of Bovey Tracy (Indiho)  was Clerk of the Peace; Got Trusham Manor & Kilbery in Buckfastleigh, Spitchwich on the river Dart; the advowson of the rectory of Trusham ; the manor of Shillingford Abbey; Torr Abbey;  together with John Ridgeway he got Abbotskeswell which had been Sherbourne Abbey property

John Slanning of the Inner temple  ,Baron Maristow, whose daughter Mary Slanning was sister of Nicholas Slanning & wife of John Pomeroy son of  Andrew of Collaton by his Welsh wife Ann Matthews. Slanning bought up the hinterland of Plymouth around his manor of Marristow  

Sir Thomas Pomeroy & his brother Hugh of Tregony bought a number of chantry lands in Devon & Cornwall.

George Rolle of Stevenstone was Keeper of the records of Common Plea

John Arscott & John Ridgeway of Middle Temple

John Arscott bought tracts  around Otterton ..  these thus joined together in the old homes with properties adjacent , whose revenue for centuries had been collected by various religious houses'
John Ridgeway of Newton Abbott  bought lands around Tormoham including the granges of Ilsham & Shipway, St Mary Church and Paignton late of Torre Abbey

John and William GILES of Totnes 1543 bought the Manor, Rectory and advowson of the vicarage at Dean Prior  once belonging to Plympton Priory; the advowson of the rectory of Ashprington ; the farm tithes were leased to Richard Drewe by the priory for a term of years....

the clere yerly value of the premises amounteth to £46/16/8d. Indeproxma £4/13s/8d et remamet clowe £42/3s which after XXV (25) yeres purchase shall amount to the summe of £1053/ 15s. Adde thereto for the woodes £13 and then the hole summe to £1066/15s whereof to be paid in the hande £600 and within iii monythes then next £466/15s Add thereto for the advowson £29/20d and the holes ys £1095/16s to be paid in hande £600 and within ii months £495/16s/8d.    memorandum to reserve all mines in Tynne (Teign) in the premises. Request to purchase lands valued at £46/16s/ 8d
signed Welyam Gyles . Purchase was paid before  March 1544.

Sir John Fulford of Dunsford  with Humphrey Colles of Barten Somerset had the manor of Minkton c/o Montacute. The Manor and advowson of Dunsford. Manor of Cantonteign Priory , with property in Exeter . late of St Johns Hospital at Coberly. in East Worlington parish late of St Nicholas Priory in Exeter. Wallsover in Challcombe. Cleeve Abbey in Somerset; the manor and advowson of  the rectory of Down St Mary  and the Manor of Buckfast Abbey.  Monkleigh and Little Torrington Woods at Dunsford , oaks being 60 to 80 years old ( an eye to ship building maybe ??)

Exeter rents of 2 tenements in St Lawrence  parish; 6s 4d & held by Joan Waggot , widow
Richard Duke, Clerk of the Court of Augmentations had the Manor of Otterton , East Budleigh rectory and the advowson of the rectory of Venn Ottery which had belonged to Syon Abbey in Middlesex. We have a record of his dealings in the purchase of an estate once part of the See of Exeter at Bishopsteignton when he purchase Lindridge previously held by the Bishops of Exeter as a summer home.

https://sites.google.com/site/pomeroytwigs2/home

 Totnes Merchants

On the whole merchantile profits & wealth was not heavily invested in monastic lands ; the noteable exception were   the leading Totnes merchants

Richard Crymes a London haberdasher , one of the few outsiders bought a Devon manor but was also in speculation elsewhere. Many other London merchants were busily buying up monastic lands in Lincolnshire.

A few of the tenants of larger monastic holdings, lessees of bartons and chief messuages bought up the freehold of the land they were occupying.

 These were invariably gentlemen leaseholders such as  Sir Thomas & Henry Dennis and Richard Edgecumbe. One exception was a yeoman with a lease on a Plymton farm, John Blaker,  who in 1546 bought  property second hand. Numerous people did this buying at 2nd hand portions of an estate which had been in monastic occupation prior to the Dissolution and which they had taken on a lease from the Crown.

These were also mainly gentlemen and persons of influence such as John Champernown,  Richard Pollard and William Abbot ( I think he took Hartland Abbey ) Their rents were low which probably made their purchase price advantageous. some sale prices were 20 x the rent valuation.

There were what they called 'New Men' up and coming men who began a career with a small patrimony.

Men such as Richard Duke, eldest son of Henry Duke, son of a merchant of Exeter, Devon, by his wife Maud White, daughter of Roger White.  A Lawyer who bought the Lindridge Estate in Bishopsteignton  in 1550 from  Dudley;  together with the "lordships and Manors of Bishops Teignton, Radway and West "Teyngmouth" and the rectories and church of Bishops Teignton and Radway". A chief rent of £20 was payable to Dudley after the death of "John, Bishop of Exeter", presumably Bishop John Vesey (died 1554).

Richard Duke was MP for Weymouth in 1545, for Dartmouth in 1547 and Sheriff of Devon in 1563–64.
He had a position as Clerk of the Court of Augmentations from its inception in 1536 to 1554 . This gave him the opportunity of buying numerous lands of dissolved monasteries. In 1540 he purchased the large manors of East Budleigh and Otterton, where his family had lived for many generations.

 Richard Pomeroy  sold the Bishopsteignton Estate Sir Andrew Dudley who later passed it to the Richard Duke who was a clerk in the court of Augmentations . From Richard Duke it reverted to the crown in 1572, until it was purchased in 1614 by Richard Martyn, son of a family of successful & wealthy Exeter merchants.  

   As 103M-0/T/2
Quitclaim : Richard Pomeroy, esq.,  a merchant of Totnes & his son & heir Henry Pomeroy, gent., to Sir Andrew Dudley. Manors of Bishopsteignton, Lyndridge and Radway, rectories of Bishopsteignton and Radway and all lands and tenements there.

Monastic lands may not have made the rich significantly richer, but neither for the most part did it create a new class of landowners.
What it did do was increase the size of medium sized estates which were in actual fact, in Devon, were fairly large to begin with.

 Some ancient families did not jump on the land sale bandwagon. The Chichester's,  Fortescue's and Cruwys's families did not take' grants' of land. Many others did. The families who did well were those  with men of talent and energy, frequently from the cadet branches,  of men in active Tudor service, Arscott, Pollard, Slanning were among them.

Merchants of note include John Northcot of Creiditon and Walter Smyth of Totnes  with newcomers Anthony Harvey, Walter Abbott. Others were John Ridgeway an Exeter lawyer, son of the Mayor of Exeter & John Gaverock of Newton Abbott.

28/6/2017