Combe Lancey Farmhouse, Crediton
The Manor, originally known simply as “Comb” meaning a wooded valley, was formed in the early 1100’s out of the Bishop of Exeter’s large Estate of Cridie (Crediton). By 1166 it was held from the Bishop by William de Tracy, Lord of the Barony of Bradninch, who in 1170 was one of the four assassins of Archbishop Thomas Becket. De Tracy granted the Manor to the de Launcells family who occupied it for over 200 years.
The Launcells were a prominent family in north Cornwall and the western portion of Devon, whose ancestor was reputedly a Norman knight who had come over with William the Conqueror, and who had taken his name from the Celtic/Anglo-Saxon monastery and manor of Lann-Cellys, now Launcells near Bude, Cornwall. The family coat of arms was “Argent a chief Sable three lances in pale counterchanged”.
Following the forfeiture of William de Tracy’s estates, the Barony of Bradninch became a Crown property absorbed into the Duchy of Cornwall. By 1285 Comb was held by Jocelinus de Launcells and the Manor consisted of about 360 acres, part of Dowrich and a number of peasant households. By 1300 it had assumed the family name as “Comb Launcelys” when it was held by Joceus de Launceles from King Edward I’s nephew, Edmund Earl of Cornwall. Parts of the present House possibly date from this time.
The Manor House was built as a typical lowland longhouse with double-height thick external walls made of cob (a mix of mud, straw, manure and pebbles) on rubble stone footings, under a massive framed and braced thatched roof supported on elm side-pegged jointed-cruck trusses. The House was divided into two sections by a cross-passage, with humans on the “upper side” and animals on the “lower side”. The human side (on the west) consisted of two rooms – the Hall where all the business of the Manor’s Court, cooking and dining functions were carried out, in the middle of which was the open-hearth fire from which smoke filled the whole building to escape eventually through the thatch; – and the Inner Room which was the occupier’s domestic area. The animal side (on the east) consisted of a long shippon probably with a central gulley to assist in manure disposal. Internal divisions were by head-height wooden stud and plank partitions, all open to the roof high overhead.
In 1370 the Manor of Combe Launcellys was acquired from Hugh de Launcells by Sir Walter Cornu, Sheriff of Devon, and was recorded as one of the properties of Edward the Black Prince, Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester, at his death in 1376. The Manor was subsequently transferred by marriage to the wealthy Wilford family of Exeter who then held it for over 150 years. In the late 15th century the Wilfords remodeled the House by incorporating the shippon area into a “three-room and cross-passage” plan, and housing the animals in separate buildings. The rooms still remained open to the roof, and the central open hearth in the newly positioned Hall was still the only fire in the building. Many of the roof timbers are today heavily soot blackened from this exposure.
Subsequently upper chambers accessed by ladder were inserted at either end of the building by the simple expedient of laying joists from the end walls onto the stud and plank partitions and building lighter partitions in wattle and daub up to the rafters. The Hall remained double height until about 1550 when a fireplace and chimney were built externally onto the south wall, after which the Hall itself was floored over. This chimney appears to have collapsed at the end of the 17th century when the present central “inglenook” fireplace/chimney was built.
The Wilfords lived at Exeter and Oxton, and the House at “Combelauncesellys” was presumably occupied by a Steward. A Court Action of about 1538 indicates that the
Manor had been divided among a number of “pore Tenants” who were being “molested disquieted vexed and troubled, to their utter decay and undoing”,, by Henry Hamlin, Mayor of Exeter, the step-brother of the owner Peter Wilford of Kenton esquire.
In the 1550’s the Manor, consisting of some 440 acres and 20 houses and gardens, which had now acquired its phonetic spelling of “Combelauncy”, was sold by Peter Wilford’s daughter and sole heir Joan the widow of Jasper Horsey, Steward to Ann of Cleves (fourth wife of King Henry VIII), and Chief Gentleman of the Privy Chamber to King Henry’s son Prince Edward. The purchaser, Robert Davy, a wealthy clothier of Crediton, passed it to his son Gilbert Davy of Canonteign whose descendants owned it until 1637 by which time it had been acquired by their junior cousins the Davie family, Baronets of Creedy.
A deed dated 13 August 1623 records the first modern spelling of the Manor as “Combe Lancey”. Early 17th century leases and indentures record the names of the many small fields, some no more than 2 acres each, which made up the Manor. Between 1763 and 1814 these small fields were amalgamated into larger units with names and areas which remain largely unchanged today. A deed of 1619 records the “Town Place” at the House. This was an ancient term for the open space in front of a Manor House, with a surrounding group of buildings, and doubtless refers to the area now occupied by the front garden, courtyard and outer farm-yard.
A large portion of the Manor, known as the Higher (which included the Manor House itself) and Lower Combelauncye, was long-leased by Gilbert Davy to the Haydon family, and subsequently by Sir John Davie of Creedy Bart., to the junior branch of the Tuckfields of Shobrook and Raddon Court, Thorverton.
In the early 17th century Thomas Haydon added a rear wing behind the cross-passage and Hall to provide a staircase and chambers on ground and first floors. The Linhays adjoining the House and in the outer yard were built at the same time. The Court “held and kept within and for the Manor of Combelancye” was recorded as late as 1715, but appears to have become defunct in the late 18th century.
The Tuckfields continued to possess the Higher and Lower Comblauncye-s, which they sublet to separate tenant farmers until 1763 when the Davie family resumed their direct possession of the Manor, and re-amalgamated the divisions into Combe Lancey Farm, centred on the old Manor House, tenanted by a succession of farmers until the mid 20th century. In 1953 after 400 years of ownership, the Davie family sold Combe Lancey, by now reduced to 190 acres, and by 1975 they had sold the rest of the Creedy Estate, and left the area.
A record of the inhabitants from about 1570 to date, together with apprentices from 1765, has survived and is included in the detailed “History of the Manor of Combe Lancey”.
By 1300 the Manor had assumed the family name as “Comb Lancelys”, held by Joceus de Launceles from Edmund Earl of Cornwall, and parts of the House possibly date from this time. In 1312 Edward II granted the Manor to Margaret, widow of the murdered Royal Favourite Piers Gaveston. In the 1370’s it was acquired from Hugh de Launcells by Sir Walter Cornu, Sheriff of Devon, and in 1376 was recorded as a property of Edward Prince of Wales ‘the Black Prince’. In 1389 the Prior of Plympton stated at the Bradninch Court that he held land at Priorton and Dowrich from Walter Cornu’s Manor of Combe Launcellys. By 1404 the Manor had been conveyed by the marriage of Walter’s daughter Margaret Cornu, widow of Robert Cruwys, to William Wilford, a wealthy merchant, and several times mayor of Exeter, whose family, subsequently owned it for over 150 years.
In 1406 William Wilford purchased adjacent Froggemer, of c.35 acres. In 1448 the Manor was recorded as “Combelauncesellys”, and in 1476 as “Comblauncells”. By 1525 it had acquired its phonetic spelling of “Combelauncy”, recorded at 440 acres with 20 houses and gardens, reflecting its later designation as a “town-tything in Crediton”. In the late-15th century William Wilford’s son, Robert, a Royal Commissioner, or his son and heir William (Escheator to the Crown and Mayor of Exeter 1511) re-constructed the earlier Manor House of the Launcells into the form seen today. Robert’s younger son James was a prominent Merchant Taylor and Alderman of the City of London in the early 1500’s and established a branch of the family in Kent.
In 1525 William’s son and heir, Peter Wilford, placed the Manor into Trust for the Marriage Settlement of his daughter and sole heiress Joan, to Jasper Horsey, Steward to Ann of Cleves (fourth wife of King Henry VIII), and Chief Gentleman of the Privy Chamber to King Henry’s son Prince Edward. Jasper died at Hampton Court in 1546, his heir being his eldest son George Horsey, later MP, and Receiver-General of the Duchy of Lancaster. In the 1550’s the Manor was purchased by Robert Davye, a wealthy clothier of Crediton, see arms right, and the part of Dowrich held under Combe Lancey finally passed to the Dowrich family at the same time. In 1557 Robert Davye conveyed the Manors of Combelauncy and Canonteign to his second son Gilbert Davye, whose son, Robert, built the new family seat at Canonteign, whereby Combe Lancey avoided the great rebuilding of the late Elizabethan period, remaining as an extended lowland Long-house.
The Davye-s leased several parts of the Manor (the Higher Comblauncye, the Middle Comblauncye, the Lower Combelauncye, & Frogmier) to John Haydon, Robert Philips, John Venicombe, Robert Collins, & Thomas Pinson. By 1595 John Haydon’s son, Thomas, had married Robert Philips’ widow Mary, consolidating the Higher and Middle Comblauncye-s, and after Mary’s death married in 1626 Judith Hamlyn widow, daughter of Richard Mayne of Exeter see near arms right. Judith’s daughter, Mary Hamlyn, married 1629 Roger Tuckfield, who inherited Thomas Haydon’s long-leases of Comblauncye. The Deed dated 13 August 1623 of Gilbert Davye’s grandson, John Davye of Canonteign, records the first modern spelling of the Manor as “Combe Lancey”.
In 1650 the association with the Duchy of Cornwall ceased. Early 17th century leases and indentures record the names of many of the small fields and closes within the manor. By the late 18th century these had been amalgamated into larger fields with mostly different names as seen today. Following the death in 1637 of Gilbert Davye’s great-granddaughter and heiress, Anne the wife of John Trelawny of Plymouth, the Manor passed by redemption of a mortgage to Gilbert’s nephew, Sir John Davie 1st Baronet of Creedy, and Sheriff of Devon. In 1652 he renewed the Tuckfields’ long-leases on the Higher & Middle/Lower Comblauncye-s, and his heirs later leased Frogmier to Edward Skinner. The Tuckfields possessed the Higher and Lower Comblauncye-s for a further 110 years.
In 1657 Roger Tuckfield acquired Raddon Court (Thorverton) and later his great-grandson inherited Little Fulford/Shobrooke. With the death of Elizabeth Tuckfield in 1763 the Davie family resumed their direct possession of the Manor and reamalgamated the Higher and Lower Combe Lancey-s into Combe Lancey Farm, centred on the old Manor House, while Frogmire became the Home Farm of the Creedy Estate. Combe Lancey was tenanted by a succession of farmers until the mid 20th century when, after 400 years of ownership, the Davie family sold the property.
A fairly comprehensive record of the inhabitants from about 1570 to date, together with apprentices from 1765, has survived and is included in the detailed “History of the Manor of Combe Lancey”. Today Combe Lancey is a 70 acre beef and sheep farm, centred on the old Manor House of the Launcells.