Roope

- Nicholas Roope was member of an ancient merchant family from Dartmouth Nonconformist, in 1643 married Jane Pomeroy daughter of Valentine Pomeroy by his 1st wife Jane Reynell . 
  The merchant families such as the Roopes, the Teages, the Holdsworths and the Hunt , created fortunes, and dynasties through trade leaving a legacy within the town.
- Nicholas Roope of Warfleet chartered a London vessel the Edward Bonaventure in 1612 for the principal purpose of fishing off Newfoundland 
- The National Archives at Kew holds the Will of Nicholas Roope of Dartmouth, Devon 1660 
- There is a memorial in the church to Mary wife of Nicholas Roope the younger, died July 25th 1637.

The Newfoundland trade began after 1583 Dartmouth adventurer Sir Humphrey Gilbert laid claim to St Johns in Newfoundland, and 800 miles inland. In the years that followed small permanent settlements appearing around the coast of Newfoundland in the places not occupied by the French. By 1630 many men from the West Country had settled and had families,. Many ha2 one winter family in England and a summer family in Newfoundland.

Each spring, for several hundred years, twenty or so ships would set out from Dartmouth to collect salt from the Bay of Biscay. Having achieved this they carried the cargo to Newfoundland where some ships would fish and others would lay that fish into salt to preserve it. They also made valuable products from the fishes’ livers, such soap and lamp oil.

At the end of the summer the ships,packed with fish products, made sail for the Mediterranean and the Caribbean where the fish products were exchanged for wine, fruit or sugar. After that they sailed back to England and when they reached Dartmouth merchants and others would flock to buy what they had.

The people of Dartmouth started to lead more comfortable and affluent life and as their wealth grew the merchants built new houses, many with their dwellings houses above the ground floor, street level shops. Streets like the iconic Butterwalk are a result of the mid-17th Century affluence. Careful planning, determination and hard work brought huge prosperity all of which resulted in growth of Dartmouth.

Nicholas Roope Esquire listed with other familiar names

'William and Mary, 1688: An Act for a Grant to Their Majestyes of an Ayd of Two shillings in the Pound for One Yeare. Statutes of the Realm: volume 6: 1685-94

A Rental of Warfleet, 1600-1615: Four Mills and a Ropewalk.

A rental from the time of Sir George Southcote for 1600-1615 has survived, showing that there was by this time a sizeable community living in Warfleet. The

leading family were now the Roopes, a family with several branches who though not yet freeholders were wealthy farmers, merchants and shipowners. They held farms at Week, and Little Dartmouth farm which included the whole of Gallants Bower.

Nicholas Roope the Younger held "A very fair new built house and quay at Walflete". As a merchant trading extensively to Europe and Newfoundland, he could use his own quay and avoid paying dues to Dartmouth Corporation. It must have been busy with ships unloading their cargoes. This house is shown in one of the earliest prints of Warfleet, dating from the 1660's. The Roopes were buried in St. Petrox church, where there are fine brasses of John Roope who died in 1608, and his married daughters Barbara Plumleigh and Dorothy Rous.

The Civil War in Warfleet, 1642-9.

At the outbreak of the Civil War in 1642 Ambrose Roope son of the above John owned Little Dartmouth while his cousin Nicholas Roope owned Warfleet Quay, the new house on it and the two farms at Week. Ambrose took no part in the war and may have been a Royalist, but Nicholas strongly supported Parliament as did Dartmouth Corporation. Having helped with building defences in Dartmouth, Nicholas then raised and armed a troop of 200 soldiers which he took to help defend Plymouth.

While he was away, his property was attacked and plundered. When Dartmouth prepared for the expected attack by the Royalist forces under Prince Maurice the area round Warfleet and the Castle was of vital importance. A road block was built above Warfleet mills. The old fort at Paradise was strengthened with ironwork and guns mounted there. The castle was manned, and guns supplied with powder, while the chain was stretched across the river to Godmerock on the Kingswear side.

Prince Maurice besieged the town for a month before attacking it along the Warfleet valley in October 1643. Clearing the roadblock by the mills he next seized Paradise Fort, from where his guns could fire on the castle. The town was forced to surrender, and for three years was occupied by the Royalists.

Nicholas Roope was never a member of the Corporation after the Restoration, when Charles II’s Cavalier Parliament made a law that only Anglicans could serve on town councils, and he died in 1681. When James II fled from England in 1688 and William of Orange landed at Brixham it was Nicholas Roope his son who claimed that he was the first gentlemen to pledge his allegiance to the new, German, King .
In January 1689 Nicholas Roope was rewarded by William III as soon as he was accepted as king, who appointed Roope as Governor of Dartmouth Castle.

Lucy Hody married Valentine Pomeroy son of Valentine Pomeroy and Margaret Whiddon circa 1680
Sir John Hody, Chief Justice of the Kings Bench 1440 the family lived in at Nethway estate near Dartmouth until 1696

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