Bagtor

Bagtor is an historic estate in the parish of Ilsington in Devon, England. It was the birthplace of John Ford (1586-c.1639) the playwright and poet. The Elizabethan mansion of the Ford family survives today at Bagtor as the service wing of a later house appended in about 1700.[1]

Bagtor Down, Dartmoor, environs of Bagtor House
"Bag Tor", the natural rock formation after which the estate is named

Descent

Early records

The manor of Bagetore is listed in the Domesday Book of 1086 as the seventh of the twelve Devonshire holdings of Nicholas the Bowman, one of the 52 Devon Domesday Book tenants-in-chief of King William the Conqueror. His tenant was a certain Roger, and before the Norman Conquest of 1066 it was held by a Saxon named Ordric, who had held six of the manors later obtained by Nicholas the Bowman.[2]

The earliest holder of the manor of Bagtor recorded by the Devonshire historian Sir William Pole (d.1635) is the de Bagtor family.[3] In the Book of Fees (c.1302) it is recorded as held from the feudal barony of Plympton by "William de Baggetorre",[4] who also held Aller in Abbot's Kerswell, also a former holding of Nicholas the Bowman.[5] According to Pole, it was subsequently held by the Beare family.[6]

Ford
Arms of Ford of Bagtor: Party per fesse or and sable, in chief a greyhound courant in base an owl within a bordure engrailed all counter-changed[7]
  • John Ford (died 1538) of Ashburton[8] (the son and heir of William Ford of Chagford[9]) purchased the estate of Bagtor.[10] The Devonshire biographer John Prince supposes him to have been descended from the Fords of Fordmore, in Moreton Hampsted, settled there as early as the 12th century.[11] He married three times, secondly to Joane Walrond, a daughter of William Walrond of Bovey[12] in the parish of Beer,[13] by whom he had issue:
  • George Forde (1521-1570) of Bagtor, son and heir, who married Joan St Cleere, a daughter of Gilbert St Cleere of Budleigh.
  • Thomas Ford (1556–1610) of Bagtor, eldest son and heir, who married Elizabeth Popham (d.1629) of the Popham family of Huntworth in Somerset.[14] Her monument survives in Ilsington Church.[15] His second son was John Ford (1586-c.1639) the playwright and poet.
  • Henry Ford (d.1616), eldest son and heir, who married Katharine Drake, daughter and sole heiress of George Drake of Spratshays in Littleham, Devon. He was buried at Littleham. His younger son Edward Ford (1596-1665) continued the Ford line at Ilsington,[16] and was the father of John Ford (1632-1677) of Dartington, supposed by Lysons[17] to have been the last in the line seated at Bagtor. Henry Ford's eldest son Sir Henry Ford (1617-1684) moved to the estate of Nutwell.
  • Sir Henry Ford (1617-1684), of Nutwell in Devon, eldest son of and heir, four times an MP for Tiverton, Devon, between 1664 and 1685 and twice Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, 1669–70 and 1672–73.[18]

Later owners

Rev. Thomas Tothill resided at Bagtor. His daughter and heiress Penelope Tothill married Thomas Lane of Bradley, Newton Abbot; of Coffleet in Yealmpton and of Spridleston, all in Devon, Sheriff of Devon in 1784.[19] (See Spridleston).

Bagtor was later part of the large Dartmoor estate of John Dunning, 1st Baron Ashburton (1731–1783), whose seat was at Spitchwick, about 6 miles to the south-west.

References
  1. Pevsner, Nikolaus & Cherry, Bridget, The Buildings of England: Devon, London, 2004, p.507; Hoskins, W.G., A New Survey of England: Devon, London, 1959 (first published 1954), p.415
  2. Thorn, Caroline & Frank, (eds.) Domesday Book, (Morris, John, gen.ed.) Vol. 9, Devon, Parts 1 & 2, Phillimore Press, Chichester, 1985, part 1, 48:7
  3. Pole, Sir William (d.1635), Collections Towards a Description of the County of Devon, Sir John-William de la Pole (ed.), London, 1791, p.267
  4. Thorn, part 2, Notes, 48:7
  5. Thorn, part 2, Notes, 48:11
  6. Pole, p.267
  7. Vivian, Heraldic Visitations of Devon, 1885, p.349
  8. Vivian, Lt.Col. J.L., (Ed.) The Visitations of the County of Devon: Comprising the Heralds' Visitations of 1531, 1564 & 1620, Exeter, 1895, p.652
  9. Vivian, p.349, pedigree of Ford
  10. Risdon, Tristram (died 1640), Survey of Devon, 1810 edition, London, 1810, p.135
  11. Lysons, Samuel & Daniel. (1822). Magna Britannia: volume 6: Devonshire, Families removed since 1620. pp. CLXXIII-CCXXV.
  12. Vivian, p.471, pedigree of Hockmore
  13. a junior line of Walrond of Bradfield House, Uffculme, Devon (Vivian's pedigree of that family, p.768)
  14. Vivian, Lt.Col. J.L., (Ed.) The Visitations of the County of Devon: Comprising the Heralds' Visitations of 1531, 1564 & 1620, Exeter, 1895, p.349, pedigree of Ford of Nutwell. No first name given for her father "..Popham of Huntworthie"
  15. Vivian, p.349 "MI"
  16. Vivian, p.350
  17. Lysons, Samuel & Daniel, Magna Britannia, volume 6, Devonshire, Families removed since 1620, 1822
  18. Vivian, p.350
  19. Burke's Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry, "Lane of Coffleet"

Further reading
  • Meller, Hugh (2015). The Country Houses of Devon. I. Crediton: Black Dog Press. pp. 93–4. ISBN 978-0-9524341-4-6.
  • Ransom, Bill (2003). "The Manor of Bagtor, Ilsington". Report & Transactions of the Devonshire Association. 135: 99–110.
  • Wills, Dick (2000). The Book of Ilsington: A Photographic History of the Parish. Halsgrove. p. 119. ISBN 978-1841140605. (includes old photos of the house)
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