[82] Turner's Tour in Normandy, I. p. 188.
[83] Cotman's Architectural Antiquities of Norfolk, plate 35.
PLATE XLVII.
CHURCH OF COLOMBY.
Plate 47. Elevations of the Church of Colomby near Valognes.
The church of Colomby, to use the language of M. de Gerville, is one of the last of the religious edifices built by those powerful barons, whose sway extended equally over Normandy and England. No records, indeed, are left either as to the actual time of its erection, or the name of its founder. With respect, however, to the former, the style of the architecture is sufficiently decisive; and there is as little cause for hesitation in referring its origin to a nobleman allied to the family of the Conqueror.
Baldwin de Brionis, or de Molis, who accompanied that monarch in his expedition against England, and was afterwards married to his niece, was rewarded by him for his services, with the barony of Okehampton, where he resided, as well as with the custody of the county of Devon, and the government of Exeter castle, in fee. The earldom of the same county, together with a grant of the Isle of Wight, was conferred by Henry I. upon the son of Baldwin, Richard de Redvers; and, either in the same or the following generation, this powerful family obtained a still farther accession to its riches and honors, in the possession of Néhou, a considerable portion of the barony of St. Sauveur le Vicomte, which Néel, Viscount of the Cotentin, had forfeited in 1047. The domain of Néhou included a collegiate church; and one of the prebends of this was attached to the second portion of the church of Colomby.