Portledge Manor is an English manor house in the parish of

Alwington Alwington is a village and civil parish in the Torridge district of Devon, England. The parish is on the coast and includes the hamlets of Alwington, Fairy Cross, Ford, Knotty Corner and Woodtown. The parish has a total population of 381 (2001 ...

, southwest of Bideford, Devon. It and the land surrounding it belonged to the

Coffin family A coffin is a Funeral, funerary box used for viewing or keeping a corpse, either for burial or cremation. Sometimes referred to as a casket, any box in which the dead are buried is a coffin, and while a casket was originally regarded as a box ...

, a noble family of Norman origin, for almost 1000 years.

History

Alwington St Andrew's Churchyard - geograph

The house sits on the edge of Bideford Bay, looking out over the

Bristol Channel The Bristol Channel ( cy, Môr Hafren, literal translation: "Severn Sea") is a major inlet in the island of Great Britain, separating South Wales from Devon and Somerset in South West England. It extends from the lower estuary of the River Seve ...

. The parish of

and the surrounding area was given to the family by William the Conqueror, as part of a reward for loyalty and service during the Norman Conquest. Most of the current house dates from the 17th century, but parts of it have stood since the reign of King Henry III, circa 1234. The 13th-century arch of the chapel still stands and the Brew House remains from when

hops Hops are the flowers (also called seed cones or strobiles) of the hop plant ''Humulus lupulus'', a member of the Cannabaceae family of flowering plants. They are used primarily as a bittering, flavouring, and stability agent in beer, to whi ...

were grown on the estate. The Great Hall's minstrel gallery was moved in the late 19th century to Alwington Church, a 15th-century church containing many monuments to the Coffin family. The dining-room retains a ceiling plastered with the family's coat of arms. The courtyard was roofed in and made into a new hall in the middle of the 18th century. There are many pieces of fine furniture, ancestral heirlooms, carved stone coats of arms, Spanish armour, and guns from the

Spanish Armada The Spanish Armada (a.k.a. the Enterprise of England, es, Grande y Felicísima Armada, links=no, lit=Great and Most Fortunate Navy) was a Spanish fleet that sailed from Lisbon in late May 1588, commanded by the Duke of Medina Sidonia, an aris ...

. There is also a

bell tower A bell tower is a tower that contains one or more bells, or that is designed to hold bells even if it has none. Such a tower commonly serves as part of a Christian church, and will contain church bells, but there are also many secular bell tower ...

and a Spanish courtyard. The estate's archive, a historical record going back over 700 years, was sold to the Devon Council for almost £50,000. The family owned most of the surrounding villages, but the last of these were sold at auction in 1981. The estate itself was sold in 1998, after nine centuries in the Coffin family's hands. This was due to a dispute with Inland Revenue. It is now the home of Michael Cannon, pub entrepreneur and former owner of Fuddrucker's restaurant chain.

References

* {{cite book , title=Devon , last=Baring-Gould , first=Sabine , publisher=Methuen & Co. , place=London , year=1907 , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iY8TAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA72

External links

Article about AlwingtonPicture of Portledge, looking north, at FrancisFrith.com
Country houses in Devon Manor houses in England Grade II* listed buildings in Devon

History

See also

References

External links