I hope to cover the immediate area around Charmouth which was described in 1564 by Thomas Hourde, who was the Surveyor for Sir William Petre soon after he had purchased  both the 432 acres of the village and the adjoining 180 acres of Newlands from Queen Elizabeth I. The total rent was £27 per annum – not a bad rate of return on the £25 that he paid for it. There are many other examples locally of low prices being paid for land. Sir Giles Strangways bought Abbotsbury from the King Henry VIII, with 2000 acres of land, for £1,096 and its is still owned by descendants to this day.  Sir William Petre was never to live in the village and resided in a huge Mansion at Ingatestone in Essex. Charmouth`s equivalent to a Manor House would have been the Abbots House, which in the Survey is described as “The Fairest House” and had previously been where  Ralph Tibbes, the Bailiff lived. The property now known as the Manor House was in fact the Grange for Forde Abbey. The neighbouring Estates were to have their Manor houses at Catherston, Berne, Abbotts Wootton, Wootton Fitzpaine Colway in Lyme Regis and  Stanton St. Gabriel. I have spent considerable time and energy piecing together the story of these Manors and their owners in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I.

This map is the earliest large scale survey of Dorset and was published by Isaac Taylor in 1765. This sheet is especially useful as it details the Manors I am about to cover in my talk.

The same map. This time with the Manor Houses surrounding Charmouth marked in.

To make it even clearer. I have shown the parish boundaries and their respective manors. I will quickly go through photos I have taken of each Manor House as it is today and then cover them in more depth as they would have appeared in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I.

Here I am outside the Abbotts House which dates back to 1525. It would have been the equivalent of a Manor House, where the Bailiff would have lived. Roger Colwill lived here in 1564.

The substantial Manor House at Catherston to be seen today was built in 1887 by Colonel Bullen.  Parts of the  earlier Tudor mansion that John Wadham resided in from 1558 still exists including the original Porch which was later rebuilt on the east side. He was also the Lord of the Manor of neighbouring Wootton Fitzpaine which he had bought from the Earl of Arundel.

The present Manor  at Wootton Fitzpaine  was built about 1765, incorporating part of the earlier structure. John Wadham, residing at Catherston would have owned the Estate in 1564.

The original Colway Manor House still exists in the center of Lyme Regis, although it was substantially rebuilt in 1921 and still incorporates the 17th century porch. In 1564 John Williams of Tyneham, would have owned the Estate.

Now just the remains of Berne  Manor and its outbuildings are to be seen today. Sadly in 1926 a great storm swept through the area and lightning struck the thatched roof  and destroyed most of the Manor House. Sir Robert Catlin would have lived here in 1564.

Alexander Every was to buy the Abbotts Wootton estate from the Sackvilles in 1583. He died 6 years later and left it to his brother John, whose family built a fine mansion house there, where succeeding generations lived. The house seen today now known as Lower Abbotts Wootton Manor is very similar and was rebuilt on the same site in 1900 to face in a different direction. Above the doorway can still be seen the coat of arms of the Every Family.

Anthony Floyer  soon after his marriage in 1591 to Ann Martyn, heiress to  Nicolas Martyn and Margaret Wadham of Athelhampton, bought the Manor of Stanton St. Gabriel, where they built the Manor House, which still stands and raised their family.

I will now talk about each Manor in depth and will begin with Catherston. This is the earliest photo I have found of the previous Manor House and dates to 1880. It shows the Tower  porch that was later rebuilt on the east side of the building that we see today.
By the time of the compilation of the Domesday Book in 1086 the landowner was William de Lestre.  The current name of the village is thought to have come from derivations of two local families:  de Leweston, (a corruption of de Lestre) and de Chartrey (sometimes corrupted to Catherston).
In the mid-13th century, during the reign of Henry III, Richard Paine, and his wife Avicia, of Catherston bought rights to manorial land from William, son of Walter de Leweston.  The Paine family held the manor until 1455 when Jane Paine, heiress, married William Wadham of Merifield in Somerset.                               

The Wadham’s were an influential family; many were members of parliament or barristers.    The Catherston Leweston Wadhams were distant relatives of Nicholas and Dorothy Wadham, who founded Wadham College, Oxford in 1610. It was John Wadham who was to receive a legal education  and  succeed his father in the Recordership of Lyme Regis. He gained some military experience during the 1540s before being appointed  as Captain of Sandsfoot Castle, near Weymouth, in 1550, protecting Portland harbour. After he inherited the family estates his interests in the neighbourhood of Bridport and Lyme absorbed most of his attention. The 1564 Survey for Charmouth shows him leasing a number of Burgages on the Street. He was buried in the church of St Candida in Whitchurch Canonicorum in an elaborate Tomb still to be seen today.
Adjoining Charmouth, on the east side of the river, is a farm called Newlands, which used to part of Charmouth. In 1576  Sir William Pole,  sold it to William Wadham of Catherston. Nine  years later it was bought by John Jeffrey.

John Jeffrey was related to William Jefferies, a Southampton notary of Somerset origin who died during his mayoralty in 1572.Nothing is known of Jeffery before he first appears in Southampton’s assembly books as a tax-paying resident in 1586.He engaged in privateering ventures during the war with Spain, and was accused by one Southampton trader, John Mercer, of ‘hard and unconscionable dealing’ in recovering debts. After serving as Mayor, Jeffery protested that he was ‘much out of purse’ in obtaining intelligence and setting forth a ship of 200 tons with a crew of 120 for the queen’s service; nevertheless,  in the same year, 1599, he bought the Catherston  Estate from William Wadham. He was knighted by King James I during a visit to Southampton in 1603. He died in 1611, and a splendid Monument shown here was constructed for him at  the Church of St. Candida in  Whitchurch Canonicorum. Nearby is a Memorial Slab to his son, George Jeffrey, who died in 1621. It was his son, John who sold it to Walter Yonge in 1647. Richard Henville was to later pay Sir John Yonge, £2,600 in 1669 for the Manor.

The 1844 Tithe Map of Catherston  reveals a total area of  242 acres of Land. At the center is the earlier Manor House and Church.

The impressive Manor House at Catherston to be seen today was built in 1887 by Colonel Bullen.  

Through the medieval period Wootton Fitzpaine House was owned in succession by the Fitzpaine and Maltravers families.It later came by marriage to the Fitz Alan Earls of Arundel, who possessed the place at the death of Thomas, Earl of Arundel, in 1524. It was his son, William who sold the property to John Wadham.

The Manor of Wootton Fitzpaine in 1844.

The Manor of Wootton Fitzpaine in 1895 covered an area of 1,776 acres.

The present Manor  at Wootton Fitzpaine  was built about 1765, incorporating part of the earlier structure. The 1564 Survey of Charmouth shows that in that year it was owned by John Wadham of Catherston.

I will now tell the story of Colway Manor which at the time of the 1564 Survey of Charmouth was owned by Henry Williams. The House was entirely rebuilt in 1921 but incorporates the early 17th century stone entrance to the former house.

This old photo shows how it looked at the end of the 19th century with its mullioned windows and original porch.  It had once been more extensive as the 1664  Hearth Tax shows it having 14 hearths, by far the largest number in Lyme Regis. Roberts wrote in 1826 “The  Henley family lived there in great style for many years. The house was large, and a road between two rows of stately trees, which have been long since cut down, led to the church."

Hutchins in his History of Dorset writes that George Carew conveyed the manor of Colway to Henry Williams, of Tyneham, in the Isle of Purbeck, who died seized of it in 1585. This manor had been settled by the said Henry Williams on his son and heir John, on his marriage with Jane, daughter of Sir John Brune.  In 1600 Robert Henley purchased from  John Williams of Tyneham, Dorset, Esq., Bruen Williams his son and Elizabeth his wife, the manor and lordship of Colway in the parish of Lyme Regis.
The Slide shows the family tree and how the Williams were related to a number of important families, including the Martyns of Athelhampton Manor. There is a magnificent Memorial to the Williams still to be seen at St. Marys Church in Tyneham.

Although the Williams family owned the Manor of Colway, they were to lease it and lived at their seat at Tyneham, near Wareham in Dorset. The House was built by Henry Williams between 1563 and 1583. It incorporated a mediaeval hall and its service rooms, which dates to the 14th century. Four generations of the Williams family occupied the house before the Bond family acquired Tyneham in 1683.

Tyneham today  is a ghost village abandoned in 1943. Many of the village buildings have fallen into disrepair or have been damaged by shelling. In 1967, most of the manor house, with parts that dated back to the 14th century, was pulled down by the then Ministry of Works. The building's east front was reconstructed at  Athelhampton and its oak paneled interior can now be seen in Dorchester Museum. This is a view of part of Tyneham Manor today.

This is the original document that I came across in the Somerset Archives relating to the purchase of the Manor of Colway by Robert Henley in 1601 from Brune, grandson of Henry Williams. Robert was to pay just £1920 for the entire Estate which covered nearly 1,400 acres of Lyme Regis. This was one of many similar properties that he bought during his life time.

The Henley family still owned the Colway Estate in 1828 and commissioned a detailed Map and Survey Book of all they owned. The areas coloured green were still theirs after 200 years.

The slide shows the Manor House at the bottom of Colway Lane in Lyme Regis.

A plan of the Manor House and gardens in 1826.

A similar plan of the Manor House and gardens in 1888.

The area today.

Colway Manor  was battered in the Civil Wars, and when the family moved to the more secluded retreat of Leigh, their mansion at Colway fell into decay. This  photograph is of their other house, Leigh near Chard in Dorset. It is very similar to Barrington Court and Montacute House with its “E” shape.
The site was previously part of the Forde Abbey estate until the dissolution of the monastery in 1539. and was later bought by the Henley family, who built the mansion after 1601.  The house was sold by the descendants of the Henley family in 1919. Subsequent owners included the local MP George Davies.  The house has since been divided into four residences.

Robert Henley was to pay just £940 for the Leigh and Street Estate in 1596 from Henry Duporte , which had formerly belonged to Forde Abbey.  The original Document is shown here with a map showing its position between Winsham and Chard.

The Family Tree for the Henleys begins with George Henley of Taunton, whose son, Robert was to found the family fortune with his purchase of a large number of Estates in Devon, Somerset and Dorset. The marriage of Sir Robert Henley to Barbara Every in 1674 was to add the extensive Abbotts Wootton Estate to their land holdings, which I will now cover.

My main resource initially has been John Hutchin`s “History of Dorset” which was published in 1774 and was thoroughly updated into 4 volumes between 1861 and 1873. They provide a wealth of information and have been invaluable to me. Dorset is very fortunate to have such a comprehensive history compared with other counties.

In the first volume of the original edition of 1774 there is a beautiful engraving of a Manor House  below which is  written “To the Right Honorable Joseph, Earl of Dorchester – The South Front of Abbotts Wootton House, engraved at his expense is respectively inscribed by his Lordship Obliged Humble Servant, the Author, John Hutchins”. I was initially confused as I had never heard of this house or its connection with the famous owner of Milton Abbey, who had Cababilty Brown design the village of “Milton Abbas” for him in Dorset. After some research I found that the house shown here still existed, although this one had been demolished in 1900 and a similar one had been built on the site but facing a different direction. It appeared that it had been at  the center of a huge Estate of over 8000 acres stretching from Hawkchurch to the coast known as “Abbotts Wootton” and this had been the Manor House for it. Joseph Danvers, later to become the Earl of Dorchester had paid £44,000 for the Estate from the Henley Family in 1768. 

I referred to the Survey of Charmouth in 1564 a number of times in the first part of the Talk. In the second part I was again fortunate to come across a leather bound Volume, simply known as “The Great Book of the Abbotts Wootton Estate” in Dorset Record Office, which came as a revelation and answered a number of questions about the immediate area around Charmouth that was puzzling me. It is beautifully bound and full of the most detailed plans of all the farms and buildings that constituted the 8,000 acre Estate stretching from the Coast as far as Hawkchurch that Joseph Danvers, Earl of Dorchester had bought from the Henleys in  1768 for £44,000. The beautiful frontispiece shown here describes it as follows: “The Distinct plans of the Manor and Liberty of Abbotts Wootton, Hawkchurch and Morcombelake. The whole being a freehold Estate of the Right Honorable Lord Milton situated in Dorsetshire, surveyed, valued and planned in the year 1769 by William Woodward”. The Henley Family had inherited the larger Abbotts Wootton Estate through the marriage of Barbara Every to Sir Robert Henley in 1674 and the purchase of the Manor of Berne in 1620.This unique Volume has provided me with  a detailed history of  the Manors of Berne and Abbotts Wootton, both of which have boundaries on to Charmouth.

Returning back to the description of the boundaries and their owners in the 1564 Survey for Sir William Petre, there is a reference as follows:
“This manor is bounded South, the sea;
East, the sea and land of the Lord Chief Justice Catlin called Berne”.
For a long time I could not puzzle out  why Sir Robert Catlin, who I knew owned  Berne Manor, also had lands stretching as far as the eastern boundary of Charmouth. I later found out that his daughter Mary had inherited his Estate and married Sir John Spencer. It was their son, Sir Robert Spencer of Althorp who was to sell Berne Manor with 300 acres to Sir George Somers  for £600 in 1587. Hutchins refers to the Spencers retaining the Manor or Lordship and later selling it to William Every of Cothay in 1620. It wasn’t until I carefully studied and read the “Abbotts Wootton Great Book” I could see that the Spencers had held back considerable land before selling it to the Every family  who in time  left it to the Henleys before its sale to Lord Milton. There is a page shown in this slide that breaks down the various parts of the Abbotts Wootton Estate and their size. The Manor of Hawkchurch was 4684 acres, The Manor of Abbotts Wootton was 1658 acres and The Manor of Berne was 1205 acres. It would seem that The Manor had been much larger and according to the description, had included Morcombelake, Beffersland Farm and Stonebarrow Farm. It was indeed the latter whose western boundary went up to that of Charmouth. Therefore at the time of the Survey in 1564 Sir Robert Catlin would have also owned Stonebarrow Farm as well as Berne Manor.

This is just one of the many maps in the Great Book and shows some of the farms and properties  stretching form the coast to Hawkchurch, that Lord Milton bought from the Henleys in 1764. The inset advert at the top is for the Sale of the Estate by the Trustees of the late Robert Henley.

The Estate Map of 1764 when compared with a contemporary Map shows that it  covered a substantial area of Hawkchurch and Whitchurch Canonicorum.

This slide shows two pages from the “Abbotts Wootton Great Book “ which cover the survey of Stonebarrow Farm, which borders Chrmouth as it appeared in 1769. The associated fields totalled 141 acres at that time and was part of the Manor of Berne

An enlargement of the earlier map showing Stonebarrow Farm and a comparison of the same area in 1888 adjoining Newlands.

Stonebarrow Farmhouse, high above Charmouth in 1880 before the fields were built upon.

This slide shows two pages from the “Abbotts Wootton Great Book “ which cover the survey of Harndown Hill in Morcombelake. as it appeared in 1769. The associated fields covered 201 acres at that time and was part of the Manor of Berne.

Beffersland, which covered 140 acres originally formed part of Berne Manor in 1764.

It is fascinating to compare the 1764 Map of the Manor of Abbotts Wootton with the 1900 O.S. Map of the same area. The spectacular landscaped gardens surrounding the house had disappeared between the intervening years.

This wonderful Watercolour from the Great Survey Book for Abbotts Wootton shows the magnificent Landscaped Garden that surrounded the Mansion house. The ancient Abbey Grange shown here, still stands and has been restored and is now a holiday let.

We are fortunate that the 1886 large scale OS Map of the Estate allows us to pinpoint the Manor House and outbuildings shown on the earlier Estate Map. The line of plans along the bottom of the slide reveals the transformation of the House over the years.

The 16th century  Grange for the monastery of Abbotsbury still exists at higher Abbotts Wootton Farm, a short distance to the north of Abbotts Wootton Manor House. It had belonged to the Sackvilles, who sold it in 1583 to Alexandre Every.

Alexander Every  purchased the Manor of Wootton Abbott from  the Sackvilles in 1583 and soon after had the Manor House shown here constructed. He died six years later and left it to his brother, John and his wife Fredeswide, whose fine stone table tombs still stand at the entrance to the church at Whitchurch Canonicorum. This engraving allows us to visualize how it once looked with the Every Coat of arms above the entrance.

The house seen today now known as Lower Abbotts Wootton Manor is very similar and was rebuilt on the same site in 1900 to face in a different direction. Above the doorway can still be seen the Coat of Arms to the Every Family.

The Every family were to be very influential and were to possess a number of Manors, some of which are shown here. They continued to own the  Abbotts Wootton Estate until the marriage of Barbara Every to Sir Robert Henley in 1674, when it passed to his family who were later to sell it to Lord Milton in 1768. 

There is splendid group of three Table Tombs to John Every, Fredeswide, his wife and son John, opposite the entrance to the church. I was very fortunate being able to uncover their inscriptions  shown in the slide, which gives their dates and their residing at Abbotts Wootton.
I was again lucky to locate another later group of memorials to them in Wootton Glanvilles Church, near Sherborne. These ornately carved marble memorials with their coats of arms to the families tell the story of the marriage of  Anne, the heiress to the Williams estate, to John Every senior, whose son, John gave both Abbotts Wootton and Wootton Glanvilles to the sons of his sister, Barbara  Henley.

Sir Robert Catlin who was to own Berne Manor, also had lands stretching as far as the eastern boundary of Charmouth. I later found out that his daughter Mary had inherited his Estate and married Sir John Spencer. It was their son, Sir Robert Spencer of Althorp who was to sell Berne Manor with 300 acres to Sir George Somers  for £600 in 1587. Hutchins refers to the Spencers retaining the Manor or Lordship and later selling it to William Every of Cothay in 1620. According to the later Survey carried out by William Woodward for Lord Milton in 1767, the portion of the Berne Manor Estate that he bought was 1,200 acres and included Morcombelake, Beffersland and Stonebarrow Farm. The original breakdown shown above reveals that the balance of lands for Abbotts Wootton also included the major portion of Hawkchurch and other lands which totalled 8000 acres for which he had paid £44,000. He was one of the wealthiest men in England with an income between £15,000 and £30,000 per year. In 1752 he acquired the 15,000 acre Milton Abbey Estate where he evicted the inhabitants of the old village and resettling hem in a purpose built village, which is todays Milton Abbas. After his death in 1798 at the age of 80, his estate passed to his daughter Caroline, who was to auction it in a number of Lots soon after. 

I will now move on to Berne Manor. This early map from 1765 shows it lying between the villages of Charmouth, and Whitchurch Canonicorum. Norchard, mistakenly written as Orchard, in Stanton St. Gabriel is also circled as it seems to have always been linked and their lands must have been combined at one time. 

This is a map of the same area today with the two properties. Berne Manor can be found by driving down Berne Lane at its junction with the A35, almost as far as Whitchurch Canonicorum, where it can be seen in the distance behind a thick hedge.

This shows the area covered by the previous slide as it would appear in 1764, when it was recorded in Woodwards Survey of Befferlands Farm.

A similar view to the previous Map taken in 1841.

A close up of Berne Manor in1887 surrounded by a number of outbuildings, most of which have survived.

Berne Manor was photographed in 1904. At that time the earlier 16th century mullioned window east wing could still be seen.

The accompanying photo to the previous one reveals the side of the ancient Manor House, which was later to be demolished.

The drawings by M.S. Hoskins of Berne Manor are taken from the Floyer Family Album (7380M) compiled by the Rev. John  Kestell Floyer, which is kept at Devon Record Office in Exeter.

This slide shows the same house soon after the fire of 1926. It was a front page story in many newspapers of the time. The caption from the Daily Mirror reads: The roofless remains of Berne Manor Farm, near Lyme Regis, after it had been struck by lightning. This was followed by a fire, which did extensive damage. This interesting building was about three centuries old.
I will now attempt to tell the remarkable story of both the Manor and the important families that were to own it over the centuries.

Now just the remains of Berne  Manor and its outbuildings are to be seen today.

Berne Manor still retains a number of  fine ancient farm buildings that can be seen marked out here on the aerial photograph.

Hutchins in his “History of Dorset” refers to the Manor of Berne coming into the ownership of the wealthy Bonville family. This may have been through marriage with a descendant of the La Berne family, the former owners. The earliest so far found is that for William Bonville of Shute, near Axminster in Devon who in 1431  is described as having  “diverse lands and tenements in Le Bernes in the Hundred of Whitchurch, Dorset, held by service of an eight of a Knights fee” In 1442 it came  into the ownership of his son, William Bonville and in 1472, his wife, Elizabeth Lady Harrington died, seized of it.
In 1485 the Manor came into the Kings hands on the attainder of Thomas Marquis of Dorset for High Treason. Later in 1544 King Henry VIII sold the Manor of Berne and Morcombelake  and lands in Norchard  to a descendant of the Bonvilles, Henry Grey , 3rd Marquess of Dorset for £518 3s 4d. Unfortunately his daughter was the tragic, Lady Jane Grey and in 1554 he was executed as a result of the attempt to place on the throne of England. His Estate was later sold to Sir Robert Catlin, Lord Chief Justice. 

Sir Robert Catlyn paid £760 for Berne Manor in 1553. He was living there when his daughter married Sir John Spencer of Althorp in 1566 in London.  In 1574 he died and Berne Manor passed to Sir John Spencer who leased it to Sir George Somers in 1587. In 1598, his son Sir Robert Spencer sold the freehold to Sir George for £600. He kept the Manorial rights and 1200 acres which were later bought by the Every family in 1620, who lived near by at Wootton Abbott. The family tree provides information relating to the marriage of Sir Robert Catlin`s daughter to Sir John Spencer in 1566. They were to have one child, Sir Robert Spencer in 1570. He was to go on and marry Margaret Willoughby and they had 8 children from whom Lady Diana Spencer was descended from.

The Spencer family have their own chapel at St. Mary`s Church, Great Brington, near Althorp which is full of their ancestors shown in this photograph. Mary Catlin was buried here, and a large plaque relates to her and her father.

In 1587 Sir John Spencer leased the farm of Berne to George Somers, no copyholds were included in the conveyance, the deed describing the land as then late in tenure of John Hodder, and when in 1598 Spencer sold the fee simple of the farm to Somers with 300 acres of Land, the former retained the manorial rights and 1200 acres of land. The Spencers held the manors and later sold them to the Everys in 1620. Sir George Somers was the most famous owner of the Manor and is known today as the founder of Bermuda, which was initially named after him. There is a magnificent statue of him in the Langmoor Gardens in Lyme Regis. On the right is a contemporary painting of him.

Sir George Somers was an English privateer and naval hero, knighted for his achievements and the Admiral of the Virginia Company of London. He achieved renown as part of an expedition led by Sir Amyas Preston that plundered Caracas and Santa Ana de Coro in 1595, during the undeclared Anglo-Spanish War. He is remembered today as the founder of the English colony of Bermuda, also known as the Somers Isles.

Somers was born in Broad Street in Lyme Regis, Dorset, in April 1554. He was the third surviving son of John and Alice Somer (or Somers). Very little is known about his early life, but by the time he was in his mid-thirties, Somers seems to have been engaged in privateering missions against Spanish shipping in the West Indies In  1581  Somers married Joan Heywood, the daughter of Philip Heywood, a Lyme Regis farmer. He was 28. She was just 19 but brought ownership of three houses in Lyme into the marriage as her dowry. Rental income and his continued commercial success enabled the couple to buy Berne Manor, a 200 acre estate near Whitchurch Canonicorum, and Norchard Manor, another 100 acre farm nearby, for the substantial sum of £600. Somers coordinated Lyme Regis’s defenses as the enormous Spanish Armada approached England’s coast depicted here. He sent out three ships to join the epic sea battle that raged off the coast from his town and watched with relief as the English side prevailed.

Somers joined Sir Francis Drake’s unsuccessful invasion of Portugal in 1589 and took many prizes while cruising in Azorean waters. He used his share of the £8,000 in prize money to purchase Upwey House, a 1,160 acre estate for a £1000 near Weymouth shown here. In 1590, after both his father and brother died, Somers became head of the family shipping business and the guardian of his two nephews, Nicholas and Matthew.

An inventory of his Berne Manor estate after his death included well-constructed beds, embroidered Indian coverlets, silk damask cushions, and carpets of all kinds and colors, among them a “faire Turkey carpet of greate price”. There is detailed list of all his property at the time of his death shown on this slide. The description of the fields detailed for Berne Manor and Norchard correspond with those taken with the tithe maps of 1844.

In July 1603, just prior to the coronation of James I, Somers was knighted in the royal garden at Whitehall. The next year he was elected to Parliament from Lyme Regis. And in 1606 he became the town’s mayor. In May 1610 Somers finally reached Virginia, but then returned to the Bermudas to gather supplies. He died there in the following November, reportedly ‘of a surfeit in eating of a pig’. His body was brought back to England by Matthew Somers, his nephew and heir, and buried at Whitchurch Canonicorum in July 1611. The position of his tomb in the church is unknown, but a brass plaque shown here records key facts on his life.

It was the Floyer family who were to make the largest mark on the history of the Manor, when in 1620 they purchased it and Norchard from Matthew Somers. They were to live or lease it for nearly two centuries until its sale in 1799. The Floyer family originated from a village, near Exeter, which bore their name. The marriage of Anthony Floyer in 1591 to Ann Martyn was to increase their wealth considerably. She was one of four daughters from the marriage of Nicolas Martyn and Margaret Wadham. Each was given a quarter share in their father’s considerable estate which included 16,000 acres of land and a substantial Mansion house that still stands. It wasn’t until 1861 that the family finally sold their share.
Soon after marriage, the young couple moved to Stanton St. Gabriel, where they bought the Manor House, which still stands and bought up their family. After her husband died in 1608, she continued to live there until her own death in 1636.

I am finishing on the family tree for the Floyer family who owned Berne Manor from 1610 until 1799. I have colour coded it to show how they were linked through marriage to all the families mentioned in the Talk. Their wealth increased over the generations and the last one shown here John Floyer married into the wealthy Bankes family of Kingston Lacy and was able to buy the substantial mansion of West Stafford that had once belonged to the Goulds.

I am finally finishing the Talk with this slide. It shows how most of these families would have worshipped at St. Candida`s Church at Whitchurch Canonicorum. The parish records are full of references to the members of the family being baptised, married and buried within it. There are also a number of memorials to record their lives, which are shown here dating back to 1584 with that of John Wadham of Catherston who was buried there.
Please go to my freshford website If you wish to find out more about any of the Manors and owners I have highlighted here.