Tapeley
Tapeley is a historic estate in the parish of Westleigh in North Devon, England.
The present mansion house known as Tapeley Park is a grade II* listed country house, built or enlarged from an existing structure in about 1704, remodeled in the 19th century and again in the early 20th century when pilasters, portico, pediment and parapet were added to create a Queen Anne style building. In the mid 19th century the estate was inherited from the Clevland family by William Langham Christie of Glyndebourne in Sussex. His grandson was John Christie, the founder of Glyndebourne Opera Festival, who bequeathed Tapeley to his daughter Rosamund Christie, who passed it onto her nephew Hector Christie, who briefly turned it into a hippie commune. In 2011, Tapeley Park was the subject of an episode of the Channel 4 television programme Country House Rescue, presented by the hotelier Ruth Watson, who advised on restoring the estate to a sound financial position.
The gardens are Grade II* listed in the National Register of Historic Parks and Gardens. They are open to the public on a regular basis and feature Italianate terraces, a working kitchen garden and a permaculture garden. The estate, now mainly owned by the Christie Devon Estates Trust, comprises about 6,000 acres, and covers Saunton, Braunton Burrows, Instow and the village of Westleigh.
Descent
Baudrope
The first recorded holder of Tapeley according to Risdon was the family of Baudrope.de Tapelegh
According to Pole, Tapeley was held by the de Tapelegh family as follows:- Walter de Tapeley, who is recorded as holding it in 1295
- Walter de Tapeley, 1314
- Robert Tapeley, 1345
Grant
Coblegh
From Grant the estate of Tapeley descended by unknown means to the family of Coblegh of Brightley, Chittlehampton, Devon. The Coblegh family of Brightley were the leading family resident within the manor and parish of Chittlehampton but were not lords of the manor of Chittlehampton. Two monumental brasses commemorating the Cobley family survive in St Hieritha's Church, Chittlehampton, one with an inscription to Henry Coblegh and his wife Alicia, parents of John Coblegh, whose brass lies adjacent to the north. John married twice, firstly to Isabella Cornu, secondly to Joan Pyne, as his brass records. His son by his second marriage was John Coblegh who married Joan Fortescue, a daughter of William Fortescue, 2nd son of John Fortescue, of Wimpstone, Modbury, which John Fortescue was 1st cousin of Sir John Fortescue, Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales. John Coblegh is recorded in the Lisle Letters as one of the Devonshire notables who were given a deer by Honor Plantagenet, Viscountess Lisle from the park of her nearby manor of Umberleigh. He also features further in the Letters. There exists in Chittlehampton church a slab monument of John Coblegh and his wife Joan Fortescue. Their only child and sole heiress was Margaret Coblegh who married Sir Roger Giffard, thus Brightley, together with other estates including Tapeley passed to the Giffard family.Giffard
The pedigree of Giffard is given as follows in the Heraldic visitations of Devon:Sir Roger Giffard (died 1547)
Sir Roger Giffard was a younger son of the Giffard family of Halsbury in the parish of Parkham, 4 miles south-west of Bideford. He was the 3rd son of Thomas Giffard of Halsbury but the eldest by his second wife Anne Coryton, daughter of John Coryton of Newton Ferrers in the parish of St Mellion, in Cornwall. Several monuments exist to the Coryton family in the Church of St Melanus, St Mellion. Thomas's eldest son by his first marriage was heir to Halsbury and the senior line of the family remained seated there until the death of John Giffard of Halsbury, the last in the male line, who bequeathed the estate on Roger Giffard a younger son of the junior Brightley line. Sir Roger Giffard had 14 children by his wife Margaret Coblegh, heiress of Brightley and Tapeley.John Giffard (died 1585)
John Giffard, eldest son and heir of Sir Roger Giffard, married Mary Grenville, daughter of Sir Richard Grenville, lord of the manors of Stowe, Kilkhampton in Cornwall and of Bideford, Devon, MP for Cornwall in 1529. Mary was the sister of Roger Grenville, believed to have been the captain of the Mary Rose in the sinking of which at Portsmouth he drowned in 1545, and was thus aunt of his son the heroic sea captain Sir Richard Grenville of the Revenge. She survived her husband and remarried Arthur Tremayne of Collacombe. His eldest son and heir was John Giffard.John Giffard (died 1622)
John Giffard, son and heir of John Giffard, married Honor Earle, daughter of Sir Walter Earle of Charborough, Dorset. His eldest son Arthur Giffard predeceased his father having married Agnes Leigh, daughter of Thomas Leigh Esq., of Burrough in the parish of Northam, near Bideford. Arthur left a son and heir to his grandfather, Col. John Giffard, and eight other children including his 2nd son Rev. Arthur Giffard, appointed in 1643 Rector of Bideford by his cousin Sir John Granville .Col. John Giffard (1602–1665)
Col. John Giffard, grandson of John Giffard, was a Colonel of Royalist forces in the Civil War, who married in 1621 Joan Wyndham, daughter of Sir John Wyndham of Orchard Wyndham, near Williton, Somerset. He had a daughter Grace, whose effigy exists in Chittlehampton Church, and at least two sons, John Giffard, his heir, and Roger Giffard.John Giffard (1639–1712)
John Giffard, of Brightley, eldest son and heir of Col. John Giffard. In 1704 he sold the estate of Tapeley to William Clevland. John married twice:- Firstly to Susannah Bampfylde, 4th daughter of Sir John Bampfylde, 1st Baronet, MP, of Poltimore and North Molton. Their son John Giffard married Margaret Clotworthy, daughter of Roger Clotworthy of Rashleigh, Wembworthy. This marriage failed to produce a male heir, only a daughter and heiress Margaret Giffard, who married John Courtenay, the last in the male line of Courtenay of Molland.
- Secondly to Frances Fane, 2nd daughter of Hon. and Rev. William Fane, a son of Francis Fane, 1st Earl of Westmorland and brother of Lady Rachel Fane, wife of Henry Bourchier, 5th Earl of Bath of Tawstock Court, 5 miles east of Tapeley. By Francis Fane he had at least two sons, Henry Giffard an officer in the Royal Navy, who married Martha Hill, daughter of Edward Hill, Judge of the Admiralty and Treasurer of Virginia. His brother and John Giffard's 4th son was his heir Caesar Giffard who married Mary Melhuish. They had a daughter Rachel Giffard who married Thomas Colley. The executors of the will of Caesar Giffard sold the manor of Chittlehampton in 1737 to Samuel Rolle of Hudscott, within the parish of Chittlehampton.
Clevland
William Clevland (1664–1734)
Commander William Clevland, was a Scottish-born Royal Navy commander who served as Controller of Storekeepers' Accounts. In 1702, having sailed into the North Devon port of Bideford, then one of the leading tobacco importation ports of Great Britain, he is said to have viewed from his ship the ancient mansion of Tapeley, in the parish of Westleigh, situated on an eminence overlooking the estuary of the River Torridge, and to have been so impressed by the beauty of its position that in 1704 he purchased the estate from the Giffard family of Brightley, which thenceforth he made his residence. He was the eldest son of Archibald Cleuland of Knowhoblehill, Lanarkshire, Scotland. The family claimed descent from the ancient Scottish clan of Cleland of Faskine, Lanarkshire, south-east of Glasgow, with which it shares similar armorials. In 1704 he married Ann Davie, a daughter of the prominent Bideford tobacco merchant John Davie, of Orleigh Court, Buckland Brewer and Colonial House, East-the-Water, Bideford. He is said by various sources to have had a younger son William Clevland, said to have become King of the Banana Islands following a shipwreck.John Clevland (1706–1763)
, eldest son and heir, of Tapeley, was Secretary to the Admiralty 1751–1763 and was twice MP for Saltash, Devon and for Sandwich in Kent. In about 1750 he purchased the lordship of the manor of Bideford, which thenceforward descended with the Tapeley estate. He married three times. His 6th son was Augustus Clevland, youngest son by his 3rd wife, an officer of the East India Company who rose to the high position of Collector of Bhagalpur, Bengal. Three paintings of Indian scenes by William Hodges RA were commissioned by Augustus and remained at Tapeley Park until 2025.John Clevland (1734–1817)
, of Tapeley, eldest son and heir by his father's first wife, was MP for Barnstaple in seven parliaments and was Director of Greenwich Hospital. He married Elizabeth Stevens, the daughter and heiress of Richard Stevens of Winscott, in the parish of Peters Marland, Devon, Member of Parliament for Callington in Cornwall. He left no children and was pre-deceased by all five of his younger brothers and half-brothers. A mural monument to his wife survives in Peters Marland Church inscribed as follows:
To the memory of Mrs Elizabeth Clevland wife of John Clevland Esq., Member of Parliament for the Borough of Barnstaple and daughter of Richard Stevens of Winscott. She died 16 September 1792 aged 65 years.
Below is a white marble relief sculpted escutcheon showing the following arms: Quarterly 1st & 4th: Clevland; 2nd & 3rd: Vert, two bars engrailed between three leopard's faces or . Overall is an inescutcheon of pretence of Stevens: Per chevron azure and gules, in chief two falcons rising belled or.