Thorne in the parish of

Ottery St Mary Ottery St Mary, known as "Ottery", is a town and civil parish in the East Devon district of Devon, England, on the River Otter, about east of Exeter on the B3174. At the 2001 census, the parish, which includes the villages of Metcombe, Fair ...

in Devon is an historic estate situated on the west side of the River Otter opposite the town of Ottery St Mary. The site is today occupied by Thorne Farm (much of the land of which has been built over by a modern housing estate known as Thorne Farm Way) situated to the immediate north of the town's school and hospital and to the immediate south of the surviving early 17th century grand mansion house of

Cadhay Cadhay is an historic estate in the parish of Ottery St Mary in Devon, England, east of Exeter and from the sea at Sidmouth. The mansion house known as Cadhay House, north-west of Ottery St Mary village, is a grade I listed Elizabethan bu ...

. The area of Thorne Farm is low lying and suffered serious flooding in 2008 which caused the Environment Agency to propose improvements including diverting the Thorne Farm Stream via a channel to the River Otter flood plain.

Descent

at-Thorne

Thorne was the seat of the "at-Thorne" (later ''Thorne'') family, which as was usual{{citation needed, date=August 2017 had taken their surname from their seat. Some confusion exists concerning two Devonshire families, one named by

Pole Pole may refer to: Astronomy *Celestial pole, the projection of the planet Earth's axis of rotation onto the celestial sphere; also applies to the axis of rotation of other planets *Pole star, a visible star that is approximately aligned with the ...

(d.1635) and

Risdon Risdon is a surname and also a first name, and may refer to: ; Given name * Risdon Beazley (1904–1979), British businessman ; Surname * Dustin Risdon (born 1981), Canadian professional golfer * Elisabeth Risdon (1887–1958) English film actres ...

(d.1640) as "at-Thorne" seated at "Thorne" in the parish of Ottery St Mary, and another named by both as "de Thorn / Thorn" of "Thorn", (listed in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...

of 1086) in the parish of

Holsworthy Holsworthy is a market town and civil parish in the Torridge district of Devon, England, some west of Exeter. The River Deer, a tributary of the River Tamar, forms the western boundary of the parish, which includes the village of Brandis Cor ...

, both of which families apparently bore the same arms and both of whose names are also sometimes referred to as "Thorne". The last in the male line was Roger at-Thorne, whose heiress was his sister Jone at-Thorne, the wife of Henry Cooke, to whose posterity descended the estate of Thorne.

Cooke

Henry Cooke married Jone Thorne, heiress of Thorne, and his descendants remained seated at Thorne until the time of

(d.1635). The arms of Thorne (''Argent, a fess gules between three lions rampant sable'') appear as the second of the nine quarters on an escutcheon on top of the mural monument to John Cooke (d. 1632) of Thorne in St Mary's Church, Ottery St Mary. The Cooke family subsequently married various further heiresses, one of whom was Mary Keloway, one of the daughters and co-heiresses of John Keloway (''alias'' Kelloway, etc.) of Cullompton, Devon, a widespread and prominent Devonshire family the senior line of which was seated at Stafford, Dolton. The arms of Kelloway (''Argent, two grozing irons in saltire sable between four Kelway pears proper a bordure engrailed of the second'') appear as the fourth of nine the quarters on an escutcheon on the mural monument to John Cooke (d. 1632) of Thorne in St Mary's Church, Ottery St Mary. Mary Kelloway's mother was Jane Tregarthyn, a daughter and heiress of Tredruffe Tregarthyn of Bremwell in Cornwall. The arms of Mary Kelloway's parents appear on the monument in Branscombe Church, Devon, to Joan Tregarthin (d.1583) widow successively of John Kelloway of Cullompton, and of

John Wadham Sir John Wadham (c.1344–1412) was a Justice of the Common Pleas from 1389 to 1398, during the reign of King Richard II (1377–1399), selected by the King as an assertion of his right to rule by the advice of men appointed of his own choice, ...

(d.1578) of Merifield, Ilton, Somerset and of

Edge, Branscombe Edge, (originally, ''Egge''), is an ancient and historic house in the parish of Branscombe, Devon, England and is today known as Edge Barton Manor. The surviving house is grade II* listed and sits on the steep, south-facing side of a wooded valle ...

. The great-grandson of William Cooke and Mary Kelloway was John Cooke (d.1632) of Thorne, whose mural monument with effigy survives in

St Mary's Church, Ottery St Mary St Mary's Church is a Grade I listed building, a parish church in the Church of England in Ottery St Mary, Devon. The church is part of "Churches Together in Ottery St Mary" which includes the churches of four other denominations in the town. Hi ...

. He married Margaret Sherman, a daughter of Richard Sherman of Ottery St Mary, whose arms (''Or, a lion rampant sable between three holly leaves vert'') appear on the monument. He is said by Stabb to have been murdered by a younger brother, and "the story goes that at midnight the statue steps down from its niche and walks about the church". The monument was restored by his grandson in 1726. The second son and eventual heir (his elder brother Richard Cooke having died without progeny) of John Cooke (d. 1632) was William Cooke, who in October 1639 brought a lawsuit before the judge Henry Howard, Lord Maltravers, against John Bagg of Ottery St Mary, a miller, for having insulted him in a manner likely to provoke a duel. The case is recorded as follows:Petition: 6/102 (no date) Libel: 17/5i (12 Oct 1639) (Court unknown), quoted i

/ref> :"About the 25th day of June last, your petitioner being at Awtry, in the county aforesaid, in the company of divers gent(lemen) and others at a publique meeting, was there assaulted by one John Bagg of Awtry, yeoman, who (without any provocation given him) told your petitioner that "he was a base knave and a base gent"; and being reproved for such his speeches by some gent(lemen) then present Bagg replyed that "he could not make your petitioner baser then he was". Cooke stated that he was a captain of a

trained band Trained Bands were companies of part-time militia in England and Wales. Organised by county, they were supposed to drill on a regular basis, although this was rarely the case in practice. The regular army was formed from the Trained Bands in the ev ...

and that his family had been

gentry Gentry (from Old French ''genterie'', from ''gentil'', "high-born, noble") are "well-born, genteel and well-bred people" of high social class, especially in the past. Word similar to gentle imple and decentfamilies ''Gentry'', in its widest ...

for 300 years, whereas Bagg was merely a

yeoman Yeoman is a noun originally referring either to one who owns and cultivates land or to the middle ranks of servants in an English royal or noble household. The term was first documented in mid-14th-century England. The 14th century also witn ...

. No further proceedings survive.

Sources

* William Pole (antiquary), Pole, Sir William (d.1635), Collections Towards a Description of the County of Devon, Sir John-William de la Pole (ed.), London, 1791, p. 149, ''Thorne'' ** Vivian, Lt.Col. J.L., (Ed.) The Visitations of the County of Devon: Comprising the Heralds' Visitations of 1531, 1564 & 1620, Exeter, 1895, p. 222, pedigree of ''Cooke of Thorne''; p. 727, pedigree of ''Thorne of Thorne''

References

Historic estates in Devon Ottery St Mary

Descent

at-Thorne

Cooke

Further reading

Sources

References