KILKHAMPTON.
HALS.
Is situate in the hundred of Stratton, and hath upon the north Morwinstow, west St. George’s channel, south Stratton and Poughill, east part of the county of Devon. For the modern name, it is derived from the church, compound of Saxon-British Kirk or Kilk-hampton, i. e. church home or habitation town, answerable to church town in English. In the Domesday Tax, 20 William I. (1087), this district was taxed under the jurisdiction of Orcett, of which more under. In the Inquisition made into the value of Cornish Benefices, in decanatu de Major Triggshire, ecclesia de Kilkhampton was rated xiiiil. xiiis. viiid. In Wolsey’s Inquisition, 1521, 26l. 3s. 10½d.; the patronage in the Earl of Bath; the incumbent Corringdon; and the parish rated to the 4s. per pound Land Tax, 1696, 352l. 10s.
Stowe for many ages hath been the seat of that famous and knightly family now Earls of Bath.
[Mr. Hals goes on with a long account of this family in the early Norman times, apparently without much authority, and quite unconnected with Cornwall.
I shall therefore select particular passages, more especially as a genealogy in sufficient detail is given by Mr. Lysons.]
It appears that the Grenvilles settled near Bideford, where they are stated to have held knights’ fees under the Crown, and also under the honour of Gloucester; and Sir Theobald Grenville in the latter part of the reign of King Edward the Third, was the principal founder and promoter of building the bridge at Bideford; John Grandison was then Lord Bishop of Exeter, who caused it to be proclaimed in his Cathedral, and throughout all other churches in Devon and Cornwall, that all persons whatsoever that would promote or encourage such a work should partake of all spiritual blessings for ever. Sir Richard Gurnard or Gurney was then parish priest of Bideford, who it seems was admonished in his sleep to undertake this work, as Bishop Bronscomb was to build Glasney College in Cornwall; the Goldneys, Octanetts, and most other families of note in Cornwall and Devon (as Risdon’s Manuscript informs us) were benefactors to this work, which bridge was finished tempore Richard II., assisted by a bull of indulgencies from Rome.
John Grenvill of Bideford, that married Burghert, was the first Sheriff of Devon of this family, 15 Richard II., son of Sir Theobald. Thomas Grenvill, that married Gilbert, was the first Sheriff of Cornwall of this family, 21 Edward IV., 1480, also the first of Henry VII., 1485, and probably the first of those gentlemen that settled at Stowe, for at such time as he was Sheriff of Cornwall, 21 Edward IV., one George Grenvill was Sheriff of Devon.
One Robert Grenvill was Sheriff of Cornwall the 2nd, 10th, and 14th Henry VIII. Richard Grenvill was Sheriff of Cornwall 36 Henry VIII. Richard Grenvill was Sheriff of Devon 18 of Elizabeth. Bernard Grenvill was Sheriff of Devon 38 of Elizabeth.
Roger, younger son of Sir Richard Grenvill that married Bonvill of Killigarth, who in the Mary Rose frigate, 37 Henry VIII., 1545, commanded by Sir George Carew, Knight, with more than four hundred men besides, after
they had for several days fought the French fleet off the Isle of Wight under the command of the Lord Dambolt, Admiral of France, with great victory and success, unfortunately afterwards as the said ship passed out of the harbour of Portsmouth into the sea, by the neglect and carelessness of the gunner and mariners, one of which had left the cannon or ordnance untrigged or chained, and the latter having left the under port or gun-holes open, by means whereof, when the ship turned upon her lee, the guns fell all on that side of the ship and bore the port-holes under water, so that the sea in an instant abundantly flowing in through those port-holes filled her with water, whereof she sunk into the deep (in the sight of King Henry himself), whereby the captain and all his men were suddenly and violently drowned in the sea.
Of his father, Sir Richard Grenvill, the elder, thus speaks Mr. Carew in his Survey of Cornwall, “he interlaced his home magistracy with martial employments abroad, whereof the King testified his good liking by his liberality.” Again, his son, the second Sir Richard, after his travel and following the wars under the Emperor Maximilian against the Turks, for which his name is recorded by sundry foreign writers, and his undertaking to people Virginia and Ireland, made so glorious a conclusion in her Majesty’s ship the Revenge, of which he had charge as Captain, and of the whole fleet as Vice-Admiral, that it seemed thereby, when he found none other to compare withal in his life, he strived through a virtuous envy to exceed it in his death; a victorious loss for the realm, and of which the Spaniard may say, with Pyrrhus, that many such conquests would beget his utter overthrow. Lastly, his son John took hold of every martial occasion that was ministered him, until, in service against her Highness’ enemies, under the command of Sir Walter Raleigh, the ocean became his bed of honour. Thus Mr. Carew, page 62. See also Baker’s Chronicle in the latter end of the reign of Queen Elizabeth.
Sir Beville Grenvill, son of Bernard, by Beville’s heir of Killigarth in Talland, was a gentleman of such urbanity, valour, and integrity in those parts, that my commendations cannot make the least addition thereto, nor I think that of a more florid or abler pen; who, as his duty obliged, engaged himself, his life and fortune, on the part and behalf of King Charles I.; and being first a horse Colonel in the militia for this County, was afterwards obliged to head or lead those soldiers he had raised in Cornwall, by virtue of the King’s Commission, under command of Sir Ralph Hopton, Knight, his General in the west, from Launceston into Somersetshire, at a place called Lansdowne, five miles from Bristol, where Hopton with the King’s army met and gave battle to the Parliament forces under command of Sir William Waller; in which engagement Sir Beville Grenvill, Knight, charging boldly in the head of his troop, was unfortunately slain, the 5th of July 1643.
Orcot, now Orchard, in this parish, was the jurisdiction under which Kilkhampton was taxed in Domesday Roll, 1087; from which place, I take it, was denominated the family surnamed de Orchard, now in possession thereof; particularly Charles Orchard, gentleman, steward to Sir John Rolle of Stevenston. This gentleman was sheriff of Cornwall about the year 1703.
Mr. Hals’ concluding part of this parish is lost.
TONKIN.
Mr. Tonkin has merely copied from Mr. Hals.
THE EDITOR.
The following extract from Mr. Lysons’s Cornwall is the best account that the Editor can give of the distinguished family of Grenville.
The manor of Kilkhampton is supposed to have belonged to the Grenville family from nearly the time of the Conquest;
Dugdale says, that they were seated here in the reign of William Rufus. Richard de Grenville, who came over with William the Conqueror, is said in the pedigrees of the family to have been a younger brother of Robert Fitzhamon, Earl of Carbill, Lord of Thurigny and Grenville, in France and Normandy, and to have been lineally descended from Rollo, Duke of Normandy. It is on record that Richard de Grenville held certain knights’ fees at Bideford, in Devonshire, in the reign of Henry II. We have not found any record of the Grenville possessions at Kilkhampton of an earlier date than the quo warranto roll before mentioned; but it appears that it had at that time been long in the family: they continued to reside at Stowe, in this parish, for many generations, and frequently served the office of sheriff for the county. William Grenville, or Grenfield (as the name was at that early period generally written), son of Sir Theobald, became archbishop of York, and distinguished himself as an able statesman: he died in 1315. Sir Richard Grenville, son of Roger, (who was himself a captain in the navy, and lost his life, as Carew tells us, in the unfortunate Mary-Rose) was a celebrated military and naval commander in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. He first distinguished himself in the wars under the Emperor Maximilian against the Turks, for which his name is recorded by several foreign writers. In the year 1591, being then Vice-Admiral of England, he was sent in the Revenge, with a squadron of seven ships, to intercept the Spanish galleons; when, falling in with the enemy’s fleet, consisting of fifty-two sail, near the Terceira Islands, he repulsed them fifteen times in a continued fight, till his powder was all spent; his ship, which sunk before it arrived in port, was reduced to a hulk, and himself covered with wounds, of which he died two days afterwards, on board the vessel of the Spanish commander. Sir Richard’s grandson was the brave and loyal Sir Beville Grenville. This distinguished officer was one of king Charles’s generals in
the West, and shared the glories of the successful compaign in Cornwall, in the autumn of 1642; in the summer of the following year he lost his life at the battle of Lansdowne, near Bath. Sir Richard Grenville, who had been created a Baronet in 1631, was, after his brother’s death, made General of all the King’s forces in the West. He was an active and zealous officer, and so particularly obnoxious to the Parliamentary party, that he was perpetually the subject of abuse to their journalists, who seldom spoke of him but by the appellation of Skellum Grenville. During the dissensions between the civil power and the military in 1645, Sir Richard Grenville was superseded and imprisoned by the advice of Sir Edward Hyde, afterwards Earl of Clarendon. That noble author gives a very unamiable character of Sir Richard, who is represented as having been in the highest degree oppressive, tyrannical, and unprincipled; but other writers attribute much of this to the personal enmity which subsisted between them. Sir Richard Grenville died, in reduced circumstances, at Ghent, in the year 1658, leaving no male issue; the title became extinct. Sir John Grenville, son of the brave Sir Beville, succeeded to the Kilkhampton estates: at a very early age he had a command in his father’s regiment, and was left for dead in the field at Tewkesbury. He was appointed Governor of Scilly Islands when they revolted from the Parliament, and was one of the chief instruments in effecting the restoration of King Charles II. He gave the living of Kilkhampton to Nicholas Monk, and employed him to influence his brother (the General) in favour of the exiled Monarch; having succeeded in his negociations, he had the satisfaction of being the bearer of the King’s letters to General Monk and to the Parliament. In April 1661 Sir John Grenville was created Lord Grenville of Kilkhampton and Bideford, Viscount Lansdowne, and Earl of Bath. On the death of his grandson, under age, in 1711, these titles became extinct; and the Kilkhampton estates
passed to his aunt and coheiress Grace Grenville, who married George Lord Carteret, and was afterwards (being then a widow) by King George the First created Countess of Granville, with remainder to her son John, who inherited that title and the Kilkhampton estate. On the death of Robert the second Earl of Granville, in 1776. that title became extinct, and the Kilkhampton estate passed, under his will, to his nephew Henry Frederick Thynne, second son of Lord Viscount Weymouth, who had married his sister Louisa. Mr. Thynne was created Lord Carteret in 1784, and is the present possessor of Kilkhampton; the remainder of which, as well as the title of Carteret, is vested in Lord George Thynne, second son of the Marquis of Bath.
John Grenville, Earl of Bath, in the reign of Charles II. built a magnificient mansion at Stowe in this parish, of which scarcely a vestige remains. It stood on an eminence, overlooking a well-wooded valley; but not a tree near it, says Dr. Borlase, to shelter it from the north-west. That writer speaks of it as by far the noblest house in the west of England, and says that the kitchen-offices, fitted up for a dwelling-house, made no contemptible figure. It is a singular circumstance, that the cedar wainscot which had been brought out of a Spanish prize, and used by the Earl of Bath for fitting up the chapel in this mansion, was purchased by Lord Cobham at the time of its demolition (the house being then sold piecemeal), and applied to the same purpose at Stowe, the magnificent seat of the noble family of Grenville in Buckinghamshire, where it still remains. Defoe, in his Tour through Great Britain, speaking of Stowe in Cornwall, says that the carving of the chapel was the work of Michael Chuke, and not inferior to Gibbons.
Ilcombe, now a farm-house belonging to Lord Carteret, is described by Norden as the residence of a younger branch of the Grenvilles.
Alderscombe, formerly a seat of the Orchards, is the property of the Rev. Thomas Hooper Morrison, nephew of the late Paul Orchard, Esq. of Hartland Abbey.
Elmsworthy, some time a seat of the Westlakes, is now a farm house, the property of Mr. Galsworthy, of Hartland. The last of the Westlakes died in very indigent circumstances about the year 1772, having been reduced to the situation of a parish pauper. It is a singular circumstance, that he was twice pricked for Sheriff after he was an inhabitant of the poor-house. In the parish church are monuments of the Grenville family, and memorials of the Orchards of Alderscombe, the Westlakes of Elmsworthy, and the Waddons of Tonacombe in Morwinstow. On the monument of Sir Beville Grenville, which is surrounded by military trophies, is the following inscription: “Here lyes all that was mortal of the most noble and truly valiant Sir Beville Grenville, of Stowe in the county of Cornwall, Earl of Corbill and Lord of Thorigny and Granville in France and Normandy, descended in a direct line from Robert, second son of the warlike Rollo, first Duke of Normandy; who, after having obtained divers signal victories over the Rebels in the West, was at length slain with many wounds at the battle of Lansdowne July 5, 1643. He married the most virtuous lady, Grace, daughter of Sir George Smith, of the county of Devon, by whom he had many sons, eminent for their loyalty and firm adherence to the Crown and Church; and several daughters, remarkable examples of true piety. He was indeed an excellent person, whose activity, interest, and reputation was the foundation of what had been done in Cornwall, and his temper and affection so public that no accident which happened could make any impressions on him, and his example kept others from taking any thing ill, or at least seeming to do so; in a word, a brighter courage and a gentler disposition were never married together to make the most cheerful and innocent conversation. Vide Lord Clarendon’s History of the Rebellion.
“To the immortal memory of his renowned grandfather this monument was erected by the Right Honorable George Lord Lansdowne, Treasurer of the Household to Queen Anne, and one of Her Majesty’s most Honorable Privy Council, &c. in the year 1714.
“Thus slain thy valiant ancestor did lye,
When his one bark a navy did defy,
When now encompass’d round the victor stood,
And bath’d his pinnace in his conquering blood,
’Till, all his purple current dried and spent,
He fell, and made the waves his monument.
Where shall the next famed Grenville’s ashes stand?
Thy grandsire fills the seas, and thou the land.
Martin Llewellin.”
Vide Oxford University Verses, printed 1643.
Sir Beville Granville was forty-eight years of age at the time of his death, as appears by the following record of his birth in the parish register at Kilkhampton:
“Bevell, the sonne of the worshipful Bernarde Greynville, Esquire, was borne and baptized at Brinn in Cornwall, Ao. Dni. 1595.”
In the margin, “Marche 1595, borne the 23d day, baptized the 25th day of Marche.”
His brother Sir Richard’s baptism is thus entered, “Richard, the son of Barnard Granevile, Esq. baptized 26 June 1600.”
Lord Carteret is patron of the rectory of Kilkhampton. In the registers of the see of Exeter, mention is made of a chapel at Brightley in this parish, dedicated to St. Catharine.—Thus far from Mr. Lysons.
All the accounts and traditions of Sir Beville Granville represent him as a hero bordering on romance, as the rival of Sir Philip Sidney, and of Lord Herbert of Cherbury. He fell, however, into all the political errors of that age, by attaching himself to the existing form of Government, not
because it appeared, on the whole, to prove most conducive to human happiness, but from some fanciful, superstitious, or blasphemous analogy it was supposed to bear with the Divine administration of the universe. Then he concurred with those who thought it expedient and right to destroy the resemblance, by limiting that which, on the supposition, should exist without restraint or control; and entertaining that opinion, he nevertheless endeavoured to prove by arguments, and still more powerfully by his arms at Stratton and at Bath, that no resistance could in any case be lawfully exercised against the individual who happened to hold the chief magistracy from the accident of his birth. Such glaring inconsistencies were, however, almost obscured by the splendour of undaunted courage, of disinterested generosity, and, by adherence to principles honestly entertained, however erroneous or contradictory.
It would be unfair to the memory of Sir Beville Granville not to insert his letter to Sir John Trelawny, recently printed in the Memorials of John Hampden, 2 vols. 8vo., by George Grenville Nugent Temple, Lord Nugent, vol. 2, p. 195.
Most Honourable Sir,
I have in many kinds had trial of your nobleness, but in none more than in this singular expression of your kind care and love. I give also your excellent Lady humble thanks for respect unto my poor Woman, who hath been long a faithful much obliged servant of your Ladyes. But Sir! for my journey, it is fixed. I cannot contain myself within my doors, when the King of England’s standard waves in the field upon so just occasion. The cause being such as must make all those that die in it little inferior to martyrs. And for my own part, I desire to acquire an honest name, or an honourable grave. I never loved my life or ease so much as to shun such an occasion; which if I should, I were unworthy of the profession I have held, or to succeed those ancestors of mine, who have so many of them in several ages sacrificed their
lives for their country. Sir, the barbarous and implacable enemy, notwithstanding His Majesty’s gracious proceedings with them, do continue their insolences and rebellion in the highest degree, and are united in a body of great strength; so as you may expect, if they be not prevented and mastered near their own homes, they will be troublesome in yours, and in the remotest places ere long.
I am not without the consideration, as you lovingly advise, of my wife and family; and as for her, I must acknowledge, she hath ever drawn so evenly in the yoke with me, as she hath never prest before, or hung behind me, nor ever opposed or resisted my will. And yet truly I have not, in this or any thing else, endeavoured to walk in the way of power with her, but of reason; and though her love will submit to either, yet truly my respect will not suffer me to urge her with power, unless I can convince with reason. So much for that, whereof I am willing to be accomptable unto so good a friend.
I have no suit unto you in mine own behalf, but for your prayers and good wishes; and that if I live to come home again, you would please to continue me in the number of your servants.
I shall give a true relation unto my very noble friend Mr. Moyle, of your and his Aunt’s loving respects to him, which he hath good reason to be thankful for. And so I beseech God to send you and your noble family all health and happiness, and while I live I am, Sir,
Your unfeigned loving and faithful servant,
Beville Granville.
With the death of Sir Beville Granville, in the moment of victory at Lansdown, the splendour of this family seems to have fallen under a temporary eclipse.
His brother is represented by Hyde, the partial historian of these civil wars, as unworthy of the character supposed to distinguish Cavaliers.
John Grenville, his eldest son, created Earl of Bath, appears to have been rapacious and oppressive.
But all this was amply compensated by the subsequent conduct of his son and heir Charles Grenville, who served with honour in the continental wars, and participated with John Sobieski in the preservation of Christendom under the walls of Vienna in 1683.
George Grenville, son of Barnard Grenville, brother to the first Earl of Bath, is known to every one by his literary attainments and by his talents for poetry. This gentleman had the honour of being elected member for the county of Cornwall, with Mr. John Trevanion, after the great contest of 1710, amidst shouts of
Grenville and Trevanion as sound as a Bell,
For the Queen, the Church, and Sacheverel:
In the following year an hereditary seat in Parliament was bestowed on him, with the appellation of Lord Lansdown, and he was succeeded in the representation of Cornwall by Sir Richard Vyvyan.
Lord Lansdown suffered imprisonment after the accession of George I. and retired from public life. His genuine works in prose and verse were collected in 2 vols. 4to., London 1732. He died, sine prole, in 1734.
The old house at Stowe was taken down by John Grenville the first Earl of Bath, and a superb mansion erected in its place, partly, as it is said, at the national expense; having the internal decorations suited to the size and magnificence of the exterior; but soon after the decease of his grandson in 1711, when the property passed into a female line, this house was taken down and the materials of all kinds sold.
It used to be said that almost every gentleman’s seat in Cornwall had received embellishments from Stowe. Mr. Prideaux’ house at Padstow received an entire staircase, and some carved wainscot has, by a singular fate, found its way to Stowe, in Buckinghamshire.
Alderscombe, in this parish, was for many years held on lease for lives by the family of Cottell.
Mr. Alexander Cottell, about the year 1720, having
served his clerkship in Penzance, as an attorney, married Sarah Phillips, one of the daughters of Mr. Samuel Phillips, of Pendrea. There is a monument to her memory in the church, stating her decease on the 7th of August, 1727, in her thirtieth year, with the arms of Cottell, Or, a bend Gu. This gentleman married again and dissipated his whole property.
The church is one of the finest in Cornwall, containing splendid monuments; and under, is a most spacious vault belonging to the Glanville family.
It is perhaps worth noticing that here, while he served the curacy, Mr. Hervey composed his Meditations among the Tombs.
Kilkhampton measures 7,234 statute acres.
| £. | s. | d. | |
| Annual value of the Real Property, as returned to Parliament in 1815 | 3,959 | 0 | 0 |
| Poor Rate in 1831 | 792 | 5 | 0 |
| Population,— | |||
| in 1801, 808 | in 1811, 852 | in 1821, 1,024 | in 1831, 1,126 |
giving an increase of 39 per cent. in 30 years.
Present Rector, the Rev. John Davis, presented by Lord Carteret in 1810.
GEOLOGY, BY DOCTOR BOASE.
Doctor Boase says of the geology of this parish, that Kilkhampton is entirely situated on the dunstone, which forms the substratum throughout the north-eastern part of Cornwall.