Woolleigh (anciently Woolley, Wollegh, etc.) is an historic estate in the parish of Beaford, Devon. The surviving mansion house known as Woolleigh Barton, situated 1 3/4 miles north-west of the parish church of Beaford, is a grade II* listed building, Woolleigh Barton and Adjoining Former Chapel, Beaford British Listed Buildings long used as a farmhouse. It incorporates remains of a "very fine example of a late Medieval manor house" and retains a "very rich" 15th century wagon roof, a garderobe with the original door, and an attached private chapel with a 17th-century roof.Pevsner, Nikolaus & Cherry, Bridget, The Buildings of England: Devon, London, 2004, p.161
Chapel of St Mary The private Chapel attached to the mansion house was dedicated to St Mary. The earliest surviving record of it is in the registers of the Bishops of Exeter for 1321 when it was licensed to Master William de Wolleghe, Rector of Yarnscombe. He was permitted by the licence to say mass therein but was forbidden from administering the sacraments there and was obliged to attend the parish church on Sundays and Feast Days. Mention of it is made later in the registers of Bishop Stafford in 1400 and of Bishop Lacy in 1426, in which latter year a licence was granted to John and Elizabeth Haache (i.e. Hatch) who at the same time were also licensed for their private chapel of St Andrew at Hele (now Great Hele Barton) in South Molton.Coulter, James, The Ancient Chapels of North Devon, Barnstaple, 1993, pp.20-1
Descent
Domesday Book Uluelie (Woolleigh) is listed in the Domesday Book of 1086 as the 41st of the 176Thorn, Caroline & Frank, (eds.) Domesday Book, (Morris, John, gen.ed.) Vol. 9, Devon, Parts 1 & 2, Phillimore Press, Chichester, 1985, 16,41 Devonshire holdings of Baldwin de Moels (died 1090), Sheriff of Devon, feudal baron of Okehampton,Sanders, I.J. English Baronies: A Study of their Origin and Descent 1086-1327, Oxford, 1960, p.69 one of the Devon Domesday Book tenants-in-chief of William the Conqueror. His tenant was Colwin. Before the Norman Conquest of 1066 it had been held by the Anglo-Saxon Alsi. Woolleigh was thus a member of the feudal barony of Okehampton, whose later barons were the Courtenay Earls of Devon of Tiverton Castle. The descent of Woolleigh was as follows:
Murdake The holder of Woolleigh first recorded by Risdon (died 1640) was the Murdake family of Compton Murdake in Warwickshire, "where Thomas Murdake dwelt". Risdon asserts that a member of this family was Henry Murdac (died 1153), Archbishop of York. Sir Thomas Murdack Sir Thomas Murdack of Woolleigh and of Compton Murdake in Warwickshire,Pole, p.415 died without male children leaving a daughter and heiress Wenlian Murdack, who married Thomas Hatch of Hatch in the parish of South Molton, Devon.
Hatch
The family of de Hatch succeeded Murdake at Woolleigh. The de Hatch family descended from Robert Atwater, son of William Atwater of South Molton, Devon, by his wife Jone de Wolrington, daughter and heiress of William de Wolrington of Hatch (alias Hach, Hacche, etc.) in the parish of South Molton. According to Risdon, Hatch was the "lord of the royalty"Risdon, p.306 of South Molton, thus the principal estate within that royal manor and borough. The Wolringtons were themselves heirs of the original de Hatch family, which died out in the male line. On receiving his maternal inheritance Robert Atwater adopted the surname de Hatch, or Hatch. Robert's son was Thomas Hatch, who married Mabill Leigh, daughter and heiress of Thomas Leigh of Leigh, near Tiverton. Robert Hatch Son and heir of Thomas Hatch and Mabill Leigh. He married Wenlian Murdack, daughter and heiress of Sir Thomas Murdack of Woolleigh and of Compton Murdake in Warwickshire, Robert Hatch Son and heir, who married a certain Blanch. John Hatch Son, who married Elizabeth Dirwyn, daughter and heiress of William Dirwyn of Fulford in the parish of Crediton, Devon. It was presumably this John and Elizabeth Haache who were licensed in 1426 by Edmund Lacey, Bishop of Exeter, to have private chapels at Woolleigh and at Hele (now Great Hele Barton) in South Molton.Coulter John Hatch Son, who married Elizabeth Gorges, daughter of Sir Edward Gorges, lord of the manor of Wraxall in Somerset. Thomas Hatch Son, who married Alis Basset, a daughter of Sir John Basset (1441–1485) of Tehidy in Cornwall and of Whitechapel in the parish of Bishops Nympton, by his wife Elizabeth Budockshyde.Muriel St. Clare Byrne, The Lisle Letters: An Abridgement; Vivian, p.46, pedigree of Basset; Vivian, p.46, pedigree of Basset Whitechapel is close to Hatch. Sir John Basset was the son and heir of John Basset (1374–1463) by his wife Joan Beaumont, daughter of Sir Thomas Beaumont of Umberleigh and Heanton Punchardon and sister and heiress of Philip Beaumont of Shirwell. The Beaumonts had inherited Umberleigh from the Poulton family who had inherited it from the Willingtons.Risdon, p. 317 The Basset family were amongst the early Norman settlers in England. Alis Basset's brother was Sir John Basset (1462–1528), KB, of Tehidy in Cornwall and Umberleigh in Devon, Sheriff of Cornwall in 1497, 1517 and 1522 and Sheriff of Devon in 1524. Although himself an important figure in the Westcountry gentry, Sir John Basset is chiefly remembered for his connection with the life of his second wife and widow Honor Grenville (died 1566), who moved into the highest society when she remarried to Arthur Plantagenet, 1st Viscount Lisle KG (died 1542), an illegitimate son of King Edward IV, and an important figure at the court of King Henry VIII, his nephew. The marriage of Thomas Hatch and Alis Basset was without male children and produced a daughter and heiress Anne Hatch, the wife of Baldwin Mallet, to whom passed the estate of Hatch and Woolleigh.
Mallet
Sir Baldwin Mallet of St. Audries in Somerset He married (as his second wife) Anne Hatch, heiress of Woolleigh and Hatch. He was Solicitor General to King Henry VIII and was the second son of Thomas Mallet (died 1502)Burke's Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry, 15th Edition, ed. Pirie-Gordon, H., London, 1937, p.1517, pedigree of Mallet formerly of Ash of Enmore in Somerset and of DeandonPole, p.275, Deandon (alias Dewdon)The estate of "Deandon" is today called "Jordan", see Jordan, Mary Hall, Manor of Deandon, Devon & Cornwall Notes & Queries 6:2,(1910) pp.47-48; Linehan, C.D., A forgotten manor in Widecombe-in-the-Moor With notes on its archaeology and mining by H. French. Trans. Devon. Assoc. 94, (1962), pp.463-492, Dewdon in the parish of Widdecombe in Devon, by his wife Joan Wadham, a daughter of Sir William Wadham (died 1452) of Edge in the parish of Branscombe in Devon and of Merryfield in the parish of Ilton, near Ilminster, Somerset, Sheriff of Devon in 1442. Sir Baldwin Mallet inherited from his father the manor of Quantockshead, commonly called St. Audries, in Somerset.Excerpt from "Notices of an English Branch of the Malet Family", by Arthur Malet, published 1885, pp 49-51, appendix W1, quoted in Sir Baldwin Mallet's first wife Jone Tacle was the daughter and heiress of John Tacle of Honiton in Devon.Pole, p.383 John Tacle was "a person of property, versed in the law", who is memorialized by the following inscription surviving in 1793 on two pillars in the chancel of Honiton Church: "Pray for the soul of John Takell, and Jone hys wyffe", with a mill rind sable between.The Gentleman's Magazine, Volume 63, Part 1, 1793, p.115, Topographical Description of Honiton in Devon By Joan Tacle he had a son and heir Michael Mallet who inherited St Audries from his father and was the ancestor of the Malet baronets of Wilbury in Wiltshire, created in 1791.Kidd, Charles, Debrett's Peerage & Baronetage 2015 Edition, London, 2015, pp.B535-6 Anne Hatch survived her husband and married Sir Hugh Trevanyon.
John Mallet (died 1570) of Woolleigh He was the eldest son and heir by his father's second wife Anne Hatch, Sheriff of Devon in 1562 and a Member of Parliament for Plymouth in April 1554 and for Bodmin in 1562 and 1563–7. He married Alice Monck, a daughter of Anthony Monck (died 1545) (son of Humphry Monck) of Potheridge (directly across the River Torridge from Woolleigh) in the parish of Merton, DevonVivian, p.569 (or according to Pole he married Margaret Monck, daughter of Humphrey Monck). Anthony Monck was the great-great-grandfather of George Monck, 1st Duke of Albemarle (1608–1670), of Potheridge. Alice Monck's brother was Thomas Monck (died 1583), who married Frances Plantagenet, daughter of Arthur Plantagenet, 1st Viscount Lisle KG (died 1542), by his wife Honor Grenville (died 1566), widow of John Basset (1462–1528), whose sister Alis Basset married Thomas Hatch of Woolleigh (see above). One of the daughters of Thomas Monck and Frances Plantagenet was Margaret Monck, who married Hugh Acland (1543–1622) and was the mother of Sir Arthur Acland (died 1610) who married Eleanor Mallet (1573–1645), heiress of Woolleigh (see below).
Robert Mallet Son and heir, who married Elizabeth Rolle, a daughter of George Rolle (c. 1486 – 1552) of Stevenstone, near Great Torrington in Devon, the founder of the wealthy, influential and widespread Rolle family of Devon. Elizabeth Rolle survived her husband and married secondly, as his first wife, to Sir John Acland (died 1620) of Columb John, Broadclyst, Devon, but produced no surviving children. A small kneeling figure representing Elizabeth Rolle survives on the monument with effigy to her 2nd husband in St John's Church, Broadclyst.
John Mallet Son, who died without children, when his co-heiresses became his sisters, of whom one, the heiress of Woolleigh, was Eleanor Mallet (1573–1645),Vivian, p.4 who married her step-first cousin (her mother's nephew by marriage) Sir Arthur Acland (died 1610) of Acland in the parish of Landkey, Devon. Eleanor's mother was Elizabeth Rolle, who remarried to Sir John Acland (died 1620) of Columb John, Sir Arthur's uncle. Eleanor survived Sir Arthur and remarried to Sir Francis Vincent, 1st Baronet (c. 1568 – 1640) of Stoke d'Abernon,Per monumental inscription, Landkey in Surrey.
Acland
Woolleigh remained in the Acland family for many generations, following the descent of Killerton.Risdon, 1810 Additions, p.420, in 1810 Woolly belonged to Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, Bart The Aclands soon abandoned their original seat of Acland and in 1622 Sir John Acland, 1st Baronet (1591–1647), son of Sir Arthur Acland and Eleanor Mallet, moved definitively to Columb John, which he had inherited from his great-uncle Sir John Acland (died 1620), and left Acland as a residence for younger branches.Acland, Anne, p.5 Sir Hugh Acland, 5th Baronet (died 1714), 4th son of the 1st baronet, abandoned Columb John for adjoining Killerton. After that Woolleigh appears to have been used as a residence of elder sons and heirs apparent whilst their fathers were still alive and living at Killerton. Thus John Acland (died 1703), the son and heir apparent of Sir Hugh Acland, 5th Baronet (died 1714) lived at Woolleigh, but predeceased his father so never inherited Killerton.Vivian, p.5, pedigree of Acland
Sir Arthur Acland (died 1610) Little is known about his life and career, but his impressive monument with effigy and inscription survives in the Acland Aisle in Landkey Church. He married his step-first cousin Eleanor Mallet (1573–1645) a daughter and co-heiress of Robert Mallet of Wooleigh.