Ovapedia search :

It is convenient to describe some of the early history of the manors of Budleigh and Otterton together because their fates were closely interwoven during various periods in history, although those interested only in the history of Otterton should refer to the following detailed accounts (1,2,3,4).   

Before the Norman invasion, the manor of Bodeleigh (Budleigh) was held by King Edward the Confessor and the manor of Oteritone (Otterton & Sidmouth) by Countess Gytha who was the wife and then widow of Godwin, Earl of Wessex, and mother of Harold the final Saxon king.   Earl Godwin had risen to prominence in the reign of King Cnut but became a thorn in the flesh of Edward when he succeeded to the throne.   Godwin, who was a very powerful man, along with a large number of other nobles in England, did not like Edward’s penchant for Norman friends and advisers and was always trying to remove them from their positions. 

After the 1066 Norman invasion all land in the country was by law the property of the King.  Under the Norman system of governance, apart from the monarch, a person could only hold land from another man.  A tenant in chief was granted land by King William and had to provide him with services (usually armed knights or men) when required.  The tenant in chief could in turn grant parcels of that land to his retainers in return for specified services from them.  All Countess Gytha’s manors were sequestered and could be granted by the King to other people. Very few Saxons had their land returned to them.  

It is often said that William granted the manor of Otterton to the Abbey of Mont St. Michel in Normandy and this is true but what is often forgotten is that it would appear that Countess Gytha had already made this gift to them, with Edward the Confessor’s permission, before the Norman Conquest (5,2); so William was just confirming this grant.  It is worth noting that Edward had spent a large part of his youth in Normandy and would have known the Abbey of Mont St Michel and was therefore probably well disposed to them.    

Indeed, he is said to have granted them the right to build the Abbey of the same name in Cornwall (although there is some doubt about the authenticity of the document the Abbey held because it is dated before Edward became King).  A start to building the monastery in Cornwall did not begin until 1135 and the building was not consecrated till 1141(6).  Monks sent from Cornwall then set about building the Priory in Otterton, and the first Prior recorded was in 1155 and there were four monks (2).  

The Reverend Oswald Reichel in the late 19th & early 20th centuries undertook a study of many of the manors of Devon.  As well as the Domesday Book he made extensive notes on a later tax document known as the “Testa de Nevil” dated 1244, and he presented, in a talk given to the Devonshire Association in 1903, a detailed account of the Hundred of Budleigh, of which the manors of Budleigh and Otterton were constituent parts (7).   

The manor of Budleigh (described in the Domesday Book as the Royal Crownlordship of Bodeleia) was later divided into two parts, Upper or Higher Budleigh (which would have consisted of the church, town and some surrounding land), and Nether or Lower Budleigh, described as “the cultivated portion of the Crownlordship of Bodeleia” and which consisted of 1165 acres plus, undoubtedly, acreages of “waste” (uncultivated areas).  Although we know that Otterton was re-granted to Mont St. Michel there is no evidence that the manor of Budleigh was immediately granted to anyone by the King as no owner is mentioned in Domesday book (written in 1086AD), and it is listed there as “Land of the King”.  The king kept a large number of manors so that he could use their incomes to finance his household or to use them as areas where he could go hunting.  

Henry I in 1125 made an agreement with the Abbey of Mont St. Michel gifting them twelve librates (a piece of land having a value of one pound per year at that time) in Budleigh Manor (Lower Budleigh), in return for the surrender of two Berkshire churches that they owned.  This transaction joined Lower Budleigh to the manor of Otterton which the Abbey of Mont St. Michel already owned.  Higher Budleigh would appear still to have been in royal hands. 

The two Berkshire churches, Wargrave and Cholsey, were given by the King to Reading Abbey as part of an endowment at the time he founded it. 

After the murder of Thomas à Becket in 1170, King Henry II gave the church and some of Higher Budleigh to Polsloe Priory in Exeter as part of his penance for that murder (5).  Polsloe (or St Katherine’s Priory) was a Benedictine Nunnery founded in 1159. According to Vivienne Brennan (8), later during his reign, or in that of his son, King John, the rest of the Royal Manor was divided into three smaller manors: Hayes, Dalditch and Tidwell; the original manor then at some time became known as Budleigh Polsloe and this stayed in the ownership of the Priory until its dissolution in 1539.  

An early owner of Tidwell was William Tidwell (probably the William de Todewille recorded in the 1332 Lay Subsidy Rolls).  Joan, who inherited his estate, married John de St. Clere and seven generations of St. Cleres subsequently owned Tidwell, ending with Gabriel St. Clere (9).  It then passed by marriage to the Forde family and was later sold to the Duke Family (8). 

Polsloe Priory was English but Otterton Priory had been founded by a French Abbey.  The English and French were constantly at war and when this happened it was common practice for the King to alienate (sequester) monastery lands and finances for the duration of the war.  The incomes from the manors of Otterton and Lower Budleigh were therefore appropriated at some point during the Hundred Years War (1337-1453).  English Heritage state that “the priory was temporarily alienated in 1332 for 120 pounds but may have been re-occupied by a monk from the parent house”, and was suppressed in 1414 (10), however that doesn’t clarify the exact date of the alienation.  

In 1414 King Henry V finally expelled the monks from Otterton Priory and gave their lands in Otterton, Sidmouth and Lower Budleigh to the Abbess of Syon Abbey in Middlesex (and at the same time also gifted them the manor and church of Axmouth).  

Syon was the only monastery of the Order of St. Saviour, (commonly known as the Bridgettine Order from its foundress St. Bridget of Sweden).  Henry laid the foundation-stone of Syon in the presence of the Bishop of London on February 22nd 1415, and asked the King of Sweden for nuns and monks to occupy the Abbey (11).   

After its transfer to Syon Abbey, Lower Budleigh was usually referred to as Budleigh Syon.  The nuns did not appear to have had any interest in improving the agricultural productivity of their new lands and it is likely that this was rented to one of the Courtenays (2).   In 1532 a few years before its dissolution, the convent was accused of harbouring the King's enemies, and of being accomplices of the Maid of Kent (12). 

Major changes took place in this area when Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries during his dispute with the Pope.  Richard Duke and his brother John bought Budleigh Polsloe (plus Dotton & Colaton Raleigh) and Richard Duke and his wife Elizabeth bought Budleigh Syon in 1540.  Richard also bought the manor of Otterton which did not include Sidmouth, which had finally been separated from Otterton at the Dissolution, having previously been leased to Richard Coswell in 1521 by the Abbess of Syon (13).  The lease was re-authorised by the King after the Dissolution.

Further information about the Duke Family and subsequent events relating to the manors can be found in a series of articles by Harry Lane in the OVApedia section of the Otter Valley Association website. 

Researched and compiled by Roger Lendon  © 2011 

(1)Simon Mason in Sketches on local History – The Lower Otter Valley © 1984 Otter Valley Association. See OVApedia index

(2)Grimaldi, E.C. (1928) Some Notes on the History of Otterton. (A. Wheaton & Co.)

(3)Harrison, E. Michael (1984) Otterton. A Devon Village (1984)

(4)Gerald Millington & Robert Jones (2000) All About Otterton (Keverel Books) 

(5)Officially the Liber feodorum (Book of Fees), but commonly known as the Testa de Nevill. A transcript, made in 1302, of about 500 earlier records of feudal tenure, dating from 1198-1293

(6)In Devon & Cornwall Record Society n.s Vol.5 (1962)

(7)Transactions of the Devonshire Association 1903

(8)Vivienne Brenan in Sketches on Local History – The Lower Otter Valley © 1984 Otter Valley Association. See OVApedia index

(9)The Saint-Clairs of the Isles; being a history of the sea-kings of Orkney and their Scottish successors of the sirname (sic) of Sinclair. By Roland William Saint-Clair.

(10)English Heritage National Monuments  Record http://www.pastscape.org.uk/hob.aspx?hob_id=448538

(11)House of Bridgettines. 7. Syon Abbey. In A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 1 1969 

(12)In: 'Isleworth', The Environs of London: volume 3: County of Middlesex (1795), pp. 79 122

(13)G. Oliver(1820) Historic Collections, relating to the monasteries in Devon. Printed by  R. Callum, Exeter 

138 EB-G-00013 any