Spirelake

Manor of Lampford, parish of Cheriton Bishop

by

Sophia Lambert (2005)

   Spirelake was a farm about half way between Cheriton Cross and Crockernwell, in an attractive sheltered hollow just to the north of the old A30. The farm no longer exists, but there is still a lane (just east of Sunny Cottage) leading down to its former site. It was also known as Spirlake (in 1576) and Spicerslake. The name probably comes from the old English ‘spir’ (rushes) + lake: ‘streamlet’, but the fact that it was also called Spicerslake at any rate in the 18th and 19th centuries may mean that somebody called Spicer lived there. 

   The farm was probably created in the 13th century when much of that part of Devon was deforested and turned into agricultural settlements. As part of the Manor of Lampford, it was acquired with the rest of the Manor by the Fulford family of Great Fulford in Dunsford in medieval times and remained in their ownership until 1768. 

   Spirelake was quite small (64 acres in 1842) and must always have been a tenanted farm. The normal pattern was for farms to be let on 99-year leases “determinable” on the lives of up to three named persons, often the children of the leaseholder – ie the lease ended when all three had died if that was before the 99 years were up (as it invariably was). Often, the same family would rent a farm for several generations, renegotiating the lease when “lives” died, and so it was for Spirelake.

   The first known tenant was John Gorwyn, a member of a large and ancient Cheriton Bishop family of yeoman farmers. His 1651 will indicates that he was then the leaseholder, although it was occupied at that time by a widow called Caseley, to whom he had presumably sublet it. He bequeathed the leasehold to Daniel, one of his younger sons. It then descended to another John Gorwyn who went up to London and became a cooper. He sublet it, and when he died in 1716 he left it to his cousin, yet another John Gorwyn. It was still in Gorwyn hands in 1740, when Francis Fulford granted a lease to John Gorwyn (c.1720-1778) of Bradleigh in Crediton Hamlets, just north of Cheriton Bishop (probably the son of the previous John). The lease was for 99 years for a rent of 7s and a fat capon or 2s.at Christmas, determinable on the lives of John’s sons William and Joseph. John Gorwyn also had to give the Fulfords a “heriot” of his “best beast” or £2 when any of the “lives” died. In 1768, when the then head of the Fulford family was selling property to pay his father’s debts, John Gorwyn finally bought the freehold, although he still had to pay a small manorial rent of 1 shilling a year to the Fulford family in perpetuity. As John remained at Bradleigh, he probably farmed the land at Spirelake and put farm labourers in the house.

    Spirelake passed on John’s death to his second son William Gorwyn (1750-1817), and it then went to William’s son William (1780-1845). The second William appears to have lived there briefly, as the record of his daughter’s baptism in 1813 describes him as “of Spirelake”. But he did not stay there long, as by the time of the 1821 census he had moved to Honeyford  After this second William’s death, the farm went to John Lambert Gorwyn (1828-1893) of Coxland, William’s youngest son. He was still listed as the owner in Harrod’s Directory in 1862, and it was probably sold on his death. 

   Although the Gorwyn family (or Lambert Gorwyns as they came later to be known) leased or owned Spirelake from at least the mid-17th century to at least the late 19th century, they do not appear to have lived there much.  The Gorwyns owned other and larger farms nearby, and it seems that Spirelake was for them useful for its extra land and as a lodging for their workers. At most it probably served as a first farm for younger sons. Certainly by the time of the 1821 census Spirelake was occupied by  a William Loram, who presumably worked for the Gorwyns. By 1841, William Loram and another agricultural labourer called George Drew were living at Spirelake with their families; and at the time of the 1871, 1881 and 1891 censuses it was occupied by the family of an agricultural labourer called William Finch (in 1891 it was described as “Spirelake Cottage”). By 1901, the house was listed as unoccupied and it was probably then that it was allowed to fall into ruin. 

   There is a bit of a mystery over the manorial rents paid out of Spirelake. Apart from the 1s. being paid to the Fulfords, an 1800 document reveals that the Hole Family (rich clerics from South and North Tawton) were also claiming manorial rights and a rent of 2s from the owner of Spirelake. The Hole manorial rights were acquired by another branch of the Lambert Gorwyns, who were still receiving their 2s annual rent for Spirelake in the mid-19th century.