How a ‘poor little’ Dartmoor manor was linked with mighty Canterbury Cathedral
Moretonhampstead History Society investigates Doccombe Manor…
For his part in the murder of Archbishop Thomas Becket in 1170, Sir William de Tracy set off for a pilgrimage to the Holy Land - but caught a disease en route and made his last will and testament as he lay dying in a monastery in Italy.
In a charter that can be dated at some time between February 1173 and July 1174, de Tracy granted ‘one hundred shillings of land in Moreton[hampstead], namely Doccombe’ to support a monk of Christchurch Priory, Canterbury, to pray ‘for the salvation of the living and the repose of the departed.’ This is the first recorded reference to Doccombe Manor found so far and for the next 367 years, its 1,500 acres on the north-east corner of Dartmoor, including nine farm tenancies, a water-mill, a ducking stool ‘for scolding women’, a chapel and Mardon Common, remained under the control of the Benedictine monks housed within Canterbury Cathedral.
Its association with the revered memory of St Thomas of Canterbury meant that, even after the Dissolution of the Monasteries and the establishment of the Anglican Church in Henry VIII’s reign, Doccombe Manor remained a church property under the lordship of the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury Cathedral. Under attack from the Disestablishment Movement in Victorian times, the church shed some of its property, including its ‘poor little manor in Devon’. Ownership passed in 1864 to the Gregory family of Dunsford that had acted as local stewards for Canterbury, until most of it was sold up to its tenants and local farmers after the First World War. Unfortunately, the new Methodist owner decided to close the Gregory Arms pub! This had been very popular with the workers of nearby Blackingstone Granite Quarry, some of whom lived in the manor’s hamlet.
Seventy years later, the remaining part of the manor, about 400 acres of Mardon Common, passed into the hands of the local farmers. The historical significance of this part of the manor has only recently been appreciated. It has several prehistoric remains; the widest stone circle in Dartmoor National Park, a stone pillar circle, reeves or stone boundary lines and several cairns, including a so-called ‘Giant’s Grave’. There are also medieval reeves, possibly marking the boundary with Moretonhampstead Manor and the remains of ridge and furrow ploughing. Deep gullies on one side are probably the remains of tin-working from the mid 16th century when a ‘John of Doccombe’ appears in the records of the Chagford Stannary. There are also several remains from the Second World War, when US combat engineers camped on the common and practised for the follow-up campaign to the D-Day landings.
Finally, Doccombe manor also had a third ownership - Moretonhampstead Manor had the rest - of 900 acres of Teign Valley woods, including St Thomas Cleave wood, named for Becket. Disputes over the woods between the two manors led to a line of stones and a baulk, or bank, being set up to establish the boundary that is still very visible. Timber was a very valuable resource, including the production of charcoal, and was carefully controlled by appointed wood wardens of both manors. Some of the woods became part of the Dartington Estate in the 1920s and were heavily coniferised. The woods, now known collectively as Fingle Woods, are today in the joint ownership of the National Trust and the Woodland Trust, who have embarked on an ambitious programme of clearing the conifers to allow for natural regeneration of broadleaf trees and traditional ground plants.
Moretonhampstead History Society has obtained an Heritage Lottery Fund grant via the ‘Moor than Meets the Eye’ project to research, record and present the history of the manor that is well documented in the archives of Canterbury Cathedral and Lambeth Palace Archives. The manorial documents have been photographed and are being transcribed and, in many cases, translated from Latin. We will also conduct a survey of the manor’s properties and Blackingstone Quarry, that provided granite for the building of many local war memorials and Castle Drogo between the wars. We are also working with the Mardon Commoners to uncover the historic remains there and have been making a drone film of them.
The outcome of the research will be an audio-visual exhibition in Moretonhampstead’s Green Hill Arts and Heritage Centre and an accompanying booklet. We are hoping that Dr Ian Mortimer, the president of our society, will contribute to a book for 2020 to mark the 850th anniversary of Becket’s death.
In the meantime we have set up a website www.doccombeparishscapes.co.uk for information about the project’s progress. We have also organised talks to accompany the research. Professor Nicholas Vincent of East Anglia University gave an illustrated talk in March 2017 entitled ‘Who murdered Becket?’
Professor James Clark of Exeter University has kindly agreed to talk in November 2018 about the Benedictines and Canterbury Cathedral Priory.
Bill Hardiman
Moretonhampstead Local History Society