Brightley, Chittlehampton


Brightley was historically the principal secondary estate within the parish and former manor of Chittlehampton in the county of Devon, England, situated about 2 1/4 miles south-west of the church and on a hillside above the River Taw. From the early 16th century to 1715 it was the seat of the Giffard family, whose mansion house occupied the moated site immediately to the west of the present large farmhouse known as Brightley Barton, a Grade II listed building which incorporates some elements of the earlier house. It is not to be confused with the 12th-century Brightley Priory near Okehampton.

History

Brightley was the seat of a junior line of the prominent gentry family of Giffard of Halsbury in the parish of Parkham. The present house, named Brightley Barton which has long served as a large farmhouse, retains only one room of the former much larger mansion of the Giffards, but the mediaeval retaining walls of the former moat survive, which is a great rarity in North Devon. A 17th-century stone sculpted heraldic escutcheon showing the Giffard arms is built into the stonework above the porch, said by Pevsner to date from the 15th century. During the Civil War it served as quarters for 300 Royalist troops, at which time it was owned by Col. John Giffard. These troops are said to have crossed the River Taw over the weir.
The estate of Brightley was sold in the 1950s by Lord Clinton, heir of the Rolle family of Stevenstone, to its tenant Mr John Thomas, whose family had been tenants of Lord Clinton across the River Taw at Bartridge, in Atherington parish, and were invited by Lord Clinton during the agricultural depression of the 1930s to also take the lease of Brightley.

Descent of the estate

FitzWarin

The family of FitzWarin appears to be the earliest recorded holder of the manor of Brightley, in the 12th century. The family was a branch of the FitzWarin family, powerful Welsh Marcher Lords of Whittington Castle, Shropshire and of Alveston, Gloucestershire, which shares very similar armorials. The Devon historian Tristram Risdon stated that Brightley became the residence of William Filius Warini in the reign of King Richard I, and stated him to be the son of "Fulk FitzWarren", who had inherited it from his father in the time of King Henry II. A similar account is given by Risdon's contemporary Sir William Pole who stated: "William, sonne of Fulk Fitzwarren, receyved this land from his father in Kinge Henry 2 tyme". The family then took the surname "de Brightley" and adopted a simplified, differenced version of the FitzWarin paternal arms, and several of that family named William succeeded one another for several generations at Brightley. One William de Brightley was Knight of the Shire in 1365. The senior line of FitzWarin became Barons FitzWarin in 1295 and were also from 1382 feudal barons of Bampton, Devon and from 1391 co-heirs to the lands of the feudal barony of Barnstaple, Devon. The title Baron FitzWarin and the feudal barony of Bampton and their share of the feudal barony of Barnstaple passed in the 15th century to their descendants the Bourchier family which made its principal residence at Tawstock in Devon, ancient seat of the barons of Barnstaple, about 6 miles north-west of Brightley. The Bourchiers were created Earls of Bath in 1536, and were highly influential in Devon. According to Risdon, Brightley passed from the de Brightley family via the family of Carew to the family of Coblegh.

Coblegh

The Cobley family of Brightley was 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 are set into two stone slabs measuring 65" × 25" set into the floor of the parish church immediately below and to the west of the pulpit. The more southerly one comprises a brass plaque only, measuring 17 1/4" × 3".
The son of Henry Coblegh by his wife Alice was John Coblegh whose monumental brass lies adjacent to the north. John married twice, firstly to Isabella Cornu, secondly to Joan Pyne, as his brass records. 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 in the parish of Westleigh, 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 third 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, including:
John Giffard, 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 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 Erle, a daughter of the courtier Sir Walter Erle of Colcombe in the parish of Colyton, of Bindon in the parish of Axmouth, both in Devon, and of Charborough in 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 second son Rev. Arthur Giffard, appointed in 1643 Rector of Bideford by his cousin Sir John Granville , but forcefully ejected by the Parliamentarians during the Civil War. The Devon biographer Rev. John Prince served under him at Bideford as a young curate and thus had personal knowledge of the family and included his brother Col. John Giffard as one of his Worthies of Devon.

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, son and heir of Col. John Giffard, married twice:
This monument situated against the north wall of the north transept serves as a memorial to five generations of the Giffard family of Brightley, the principal manor within the parish of Chittlehampton. It was erected in 1625 by John Giffard, then a young man, shown kneeling at the bottom right, ostensibly as a monument to his grandfather John Giffard, whose heir he was and who is represented by the main recumbent effigy. The young John's father Arthur Giffard, who died during his own father's lifetime and thus never inherited Brightley, is shown kneeling opposite his son at the bottom left, praying before a book placed on a prie dieu. Two renaissance-style stone medallions showing faces in profile sculpted in relief are positioned above the recumbent effigy and, as is indicated by the heraldry, represent on the left Sir Roger Giffard who married Margaret Cobleigh, heiress of Brightley, and on the right his son John Giffard, who by his wife Mary Grenville, was the father of John Giffard, the recumbent effigy below him. On a panel directly above the recumbent effigy is an inscription in Latin, translated into English thus:

"Here lies John Giffard, Esquire, a man of outstanding piety, probity, prudence and providence, who from Honor his wife, from the family of Erle, received a most plentiful progeny. However with Arthur his firstborn having died with his father still living, he substituted for him as his heir John the son of Arthur. Thus with his family splendidly and successfully settled, with his sons and with the sons of his sons sufficiently provided for and with John his heir having been allied in marriage to the most select Joan from the illustrious stock of Wyndham of Somerset, already a seventy-year-old, he departed from the living. With his urn having been touched, those famous names once upon a time dead seemed as if to have risen up again: Roger Giffard, knight, sprung from the family of Halsbury, who had as his wife Margaret the daughter and heiress of John Cobleigh of Brightley; John Giffard, esquire, whom Mary was the wife, the daughter of Richard Grenville, knight; and of the greatest hope Arthur Giffard who received for his wife Agnes, the daughter of Thomas Leigh, esquire. John Giffard, his most sorrowful grandson, placed here this monument, a symbol of most pious observance".
Atop in Latin are the words translated as "The angels carried him into Abraham's bosom".