Medland

Manor of Medland, parish of Cheriton Bishop

by

Sophia Lambert (2006 and 2018)

    Medland, also known as Midelanda or Mideland (in 1086); Middellond (in 1268); Middelond (in 1268); Midleton; Mideland;  and Mydland, means simply “middle land”, probably because it was between the land given by King Aethelweard of Wessex to the Church in Crediton in the 8th century and another tract of land called “Hyple’s old land” that was granted by another Saxon monarch to one of his followers in the 10th century. Medland is one of the manors mentioned in the Domesday Book, which records that in 1066 it was held by an Anglo-Saxon called Alestan. By 1086, the manor had passed to Godwin of Chittlehampton, one of William the Conqueror’s very few English (i.e. Anglo-Saxon) thanes. Its total area was probably about 6-700 acres, a medium to large manor for the area. The predecessors of the house at Medland were probably always the manor-house for this manor, which remained an entity until the early 19th century.
 
   The Domesday Book records that in 1086 the land of the manor needed eight plough-teams (of oxen) to plough it. Godwin had one plough-team and the villeins (the farmers holding and working manorial land and owing service to the lord of the manor) had three plough teams. There were 13 villeins, so the manor had effectively 13 households, some or all of which would have become today’s farms.   There was also 1 serf (bound to the lord of the manor), 20 sheep, 3 acres of wood and 10 acres of pasture. Godwin had received other lands from William the Conqueror and it is unlikely that he lived at Medland, although there was no doubt a bailiff managing his affairs, possibly living in a house on the site of the later manor-house. 

Medieval times and the dissolution of the monasteries

    In the early 1100s, the manor of Medland appears to have passed into the hands of a Norman adventurer called Robert FitzHamon. He had connections with the Abbey of Tewkesbury and presented the manor to the Abbots of Tewkesbury (the grant was subsequently confirmed by a charter from Henry I). Presentations of land to monasteries were quite common in medieval times, as they were seen by those who had pursued a sinful life as a way of making peace with the Almighty.  The records show that during the second half of the 1200s, the manor was let to Henry de Stanweye, and probably the monks let it for income during most or all of their tenure. 

    The Abbots kept the manor until it was annexed by Henry VIII as part of his dissolution of the monasteries between 1535 and 1545. The monastic lands seized by Henry VIII were either sold or given to his supporters, and in 1541 he granted the manor of Medland to Anthony Harvey, along with a clutch of other manors in mid-Devon. Harvey was a native of Bedfordshire who had migrated to Devonshire and married a wife from the county. He was the “deputy” (a sort of steward) in the South-West of the Russell family, later Dukes of Bedford, who were strong supporters of Henry VIII. Medland was described as having free and customary rents from its farms of 114 shillings per annum and court revenues of 6s.8d – i.e. a total annual revenue of  £6.0s.1d. 

The Davys take over

c.1557. The Harveys did not keep the manor long. In about 1557, during the reign of Bloody Mary (1553-1558), it was sold to Lawrence Davie, the son of Robert Davie, a rich merchant of Crediton. Lawrence’s descendants (who preferred the spelling “Davy”) hung onto Medland until 1722. They extended their lands by acquiring neighbouring farms (such as Gorwyn) that were not originally part of the manor of Medland. Along with the Fulfords, they were the biggest landlords in the parish. As they were resident in the parish, whereas the Fulfords remained in Dunsford, the Davys became the main local magnates, and there are a number of monuments to them in Cheriton Bishop church. 

1722.   Andrew Davy, the last male Davy in the direct line, died in 1722. He bequeathed Medland first to his widow and then on her death in trust to William Foulkes, the son of the Rev. Canon Peter Foulkes of Exeter, who was the absentee Rector of Cheriton Bishop from 1714 until his death in 1747. The Foulkes family do not appear to have been related to the Davys, and it is not clear why Andrew Davy left them his very substantial property. Others in the Davy family contested the will in 1727, but lost the case. The Davys almost certainly lived at Medland Manor, but William Foulkes (who died in 1773) does not appear to have lived there, and he probably let the house. 

    William’s son Peter Davy Foulkes (all of William Foulkes’ line were given the name Davy as a second Christian name), a clergyman, did move into Medland. He pulled down the old house and built a large new manor-house, which was described in 1814, when the property was up for sale, as a “Modern, Substantial, Well-Built Mansion with offices of every description and fit for the reception of a large family, with lawns, shrubberies,” etc, etc. This was probably a typical brick-built Georgian manor-house. The old house was described at the time as “a very low and incommodious structure built of cob but covered in slate. In pulling it down, a coin, half a crown, of Charles I was found in the foundation, so the house was either built or had some extension to it at that time”. 

1778.    Despite building a new house, Peter does not appear to have stayed there long, as from at least 1778 it appears to have been in the hands of the Melhuish family, local yeoman farmers. In that year, John Melhuish took an apprentice for Medland and in 1785 the land tax records indicate that the home farm of Medland was in the tenancy of Charles Melhuish. William Melhuish is recorded as taking an apprentice for Medland in 1811, so the Melhuishes were there at least until then. 

1797.    Peter Davy Foulkes died in 1797. According to the inscription on his tomb in Cheriton Bishop, he was vicar of Batheaston in Somerset and curate of Cheriton Bishop. This gives little clue as to where he lived, however, as such positions were often held by absentees. On Peter’s death, Medland passed to his brother John Davy Foulkes, a captain in the East India Company’s fleet who later lived at Tiverton, continuing the tradition of absentee landowners. 

The Medland estate is sold

1813.     John Davy Foulkes had died in 1813, leaving the estate to his wife Elizabeth. She put the whole Medland estate, totalling some 1,300 acres, up for sale by auction. Quite a few of the smaller farms were purchased by their tenants. But a large part of the estate, including Medland Manor itself and its farm of 213 acres, was purchased by George Lambert Gorwyn of Spreyton (1763-1837).  He paid £6,000 for Medland Manorhouse and its farm, and some £15,000 for other properties on the estate, totalling some 800 acres. He also acquired the Lordship of the Manor of Medland, although by that time this was probably a mainly honorific title. The acreage of the Medland home farm was 213 acres, very large for the period.

1817.    George’s son, another George, married in 1817 and his father put him and his wife in Medland – a very grand wedding present for the two young people. In the 1821 census they are recorded as living there with their baby son Richard (a mistake; they had two sons by that time, George and Richard). There were also four servants and two apprentices, one only 10 years old. Unfortunately the young Lambert Gorwyns were not a happy couple. Both had been pushed into marriage against their will, and according to family stories among their descendants the marriage was stormy. Whether for this reason or whether because George Lambert Gorwyn the elder had over-reached himself by his purchase of the Medland properties (there are indications of a mortgage arrangement in 1821), George the elder sold Medland Manor and most of the other properties that he had acquired in 1824, after only 10 years of ownership. There are papers in the Devon Record Office which indicate that he first tried negotiating a sale to one Robert Harris. Maybe this fell through, or else Harris sold it on almost immediately, because by 1826 the owner was listed in the land tax records as Seth Hyde, a prosperous Exeter merchant. Like the Foulkes, he seems to have lived there only briefly, or possibly not at all. Instead he made his home at the neighbouring Venbridge House. Through Bryce’s daughter, the estate subsequently descended to George Bryce Pennell and his successors.

The later tenants of Medland

1826-1841.    From then on, the manor-house and the home farm were let to a series of tenant-farmers, the first of whom appear to have been John and Mary Roberts, who were there until at least 1829 (when their child was baptised at the church in Cheriton Bishop), although a William Northcott is also recorded there in 1829. William Arscott, a 35-year old farmer from a big local family, was the tenant at the time of the 1841 census. He was living there with his wife and four young daughters, and there were also eight farmworkers, servants and apprentices. The farm is listed in the tithe apportionment records of the early 1840s as consisting of 219 acres.

1840s and 1850s.    In the late 1840s, the tenancy of Medland was taken over by George Gorwyn (1784-1862), a yeoman farmer and remote cousin of the George Lambert Gorwyn who had earlier owned Medland.  The 1851 census describes him as farming 280 acres (so he obviously had some neighbouring land as well). Along with his family there were four farm labourers and a domestic servant living on the property in both 1851 and 1861. The 186c census details their individual occupations: ploughman (age 19), carter (age 18,) cattle feeder (age 13), ploughboy (age 13), dairymaid (age 15) and house and general servant (age 15). Given the large size of the farm, there may well have been older farm labourers also working for the Gorwyns at Medland, but living with their families in the village or nearby cottages. 

1862-1901.    George Gorwyn died in 1862, bequeathing the lease of Medland to his sixth and youngest son George Lambert Gorwyn (1826-1907). It is slightly odd that Medland should have gone to the youngest son, but no doubt it was because George junior was the son who stayed at home (there was another slightly older son William who also lived on at Medland, but he was probably mentally or physically inadequate in some way). George junior is recorded in the 1871 census as living at Medland with his wife and infant daughter and brother William and no fewer than 6 servants, so it was still a large concern. He remained at Medland until the 1880s. But he had only daughters, and retired to a cottage in Dawlish in the 1880s, ending the Gorwyn connection with Medland.    By 1889, a farmer called Thomas Baker had become the tenant. He was 60 at the time of the 1891 census, which may explain why he did not stay long. By 1901, the farm had been taken over by a new tenant, William Boundy, and his family.

Owners 1879-1938.    As regards the owners of the property, Medland Manor seems to have been an unlucky house with several changes of ownership and several failed attempts to sell it. In 1876, the Pennell family put the Medland and Venbridge estate on sale – some 1,700 acres, including the freehold of Medland – and it was acquired by Charles Noble of London in 1869. Venbridge was by then the grand house of the estate and an article about the sale in the Western Times refers to the “old Manor-House of Medland” as being a pleasing site for the erection of a mansion.  So it seems that the house was by then in a pretty dilapidated state. In 1903 Medland Manor (without the rest of the estate) was sold to Mr J.W. Jenkins of London. He built a new sandstone house with 13 bedrooms in 1905 in what was described later as “the late Tudor style of architecture”.  But Jenkins ran into financial problems and had to sell the house. In 1931 Sir Thomas and Lady Lennard moved in, but in 1938 Lennard died and the house was put back on the market.