The Noble and Gentle Men of England / or, notes touching the arms and descents of the ancient knightly and gentle houses of England, arranged in their respective counties.

by Evelyn Philip Shirley

Arms.—Sable, fretty or, a crescent for difference.

Present Representative, John Prestwood Bellew, Esq.

Drewe of Grange, in the parish of Broad Hembury.

The name is derived from Drogo or Dru, and is supposed to be Norman. The first proved ancestor of the family however is William Drewe, who married an heiress of Prideaux of Orcheston in this county, and appears to have lived about the beginning of the fourteenth century. His son was of Sharpham, also in Devonshire. The present seat was erected by Sir Thomas Drewe in 1610.

Younger branches of this family were of Drew's Cliffe and High Hayne in Newton St. Cyres.

See Lysons, cxliii. and 266; Westcote's Pedigrees, 582-3; and the Topographer and Genealogist, ii. 209, for the Drews of Ireland, descended from a second son of the house of Drew's Cliffe, who came to Ireland, and settled at Meanus, in the county of Kerry, in 1633; see also Prince's Worthies, 1st ed. p. 249.

Arms.—Ermine, a lion passant gules.

Present Representative, Edward Simcoe Drewe, Esq.

Buller of Downes, in the parish of Crediton.