The Domesday Book of 1086 lists Baentone as one of the 27 Devon holdings of Walter of Douai, also known therein as Walscin. Walter was also feudal baron of Castle Cary in Somerset. At Bampton he established a castle, the motte of which survives today. The manor was a very large holding of 76 households, and previously to the Norman Conquest of England of 1066 had been held in demesne by King Edward the Confessor. As a manor in the royal demesne it had paid no tax. Walter had obtained it from William the Conqueror in exchange for the manors previously granted to him of Ermington and Blackawton. According to the Book of Fees the member manors of the barony of Bampton included: Duvale, Hele, Doddiscombe, Hockworthy, Havekareland, and Legh. Walter held the manor of Bampton in demesne, but nevertheless he had three tenants who held land somewhere within the manor, namely two men named Rademar, one of whom appears to have been a tenant of several of Walter's Somerset manors. One may possibly have been Rademar the Clerk, Walter's brother. The third tenant was Gerard, thought to have been Walter's steward and his tenant at Bratton Seymour in Somerset. The descent from Walter of Douai was as follows:
Robert of Douai, who in 1136 rebelled against King Stephen, when his lands passed to his daughter and heiress Juliana.
Juliana of Douai, who married as her first husband Fulk Paynel
Paynel
The Duchess of Cleveland in her Battle Abbey Roll stated of the Paynel family: "The various accounts of it, either by Dugdale, or the county historians of places where they held lands, are so contradictory to each other, that to endeavour to reconcile them to any degree of correctness would require more consumption of time and expense in the investigation of public records, than would compensate any author for the undertaking."—Banks. I, for one, should be far from coveting such a task, even if I possessed the ability that it would require". The descent of Paynel, feudal barons of Bampton is as follows, according to Sanders :
Fulk Paynel, husband of Juliana of Douai
Fulk Paynel, who in 1180 offered 1,000 marks in payment of feudal relief on his inheritance, but fled England in 1185, when the barony escheated to the crown until restored to Fulk in 1199, on payment of 1,000 marks.
William Paynel, son and heir, paid 200 marks feudal relief for his inheritance. He married Alice Brewer, 4th daughter and co-heiress of William Brewer, Sheriff of Devon, and widow of Reginald de Mohun feudal baron of Dunster, Somerset.
William Paynel, who left as his heir his sister Auda Paynell, wife of John de Ballon, feudal baron of Much Marcle in Herefordshire.
Ballon
The first members of this family to have come to England were Wynebald de Ballon, and his brother Hamelin de Ballon, sons of Drogo de Ballon, lord of the castle of Ballon, 12 miles north of Le Mans, capital of the ancient province of Maine. From its strength the castle was known as "The Gateway to Maine". Ballon is today a French commune, in the department of Sarthe, in the modern region of Pays-de-la-Loire. Maine was invaded and conquered by William Duke of Normandy in the early 1060s, just prior to his invasion of England.
John de Ballon, feudal baron of Much Marcle in Herefordshire. He was charged £100 in feudal relief for the lands of his brother-in-law William Paynel. He died without children from Auda Paynel from whose death in 1261 until 1267 the barony passed to the wardship of
Edmund of Lancaster, the second surviving son of King Henry III.
Cogan
John de Cogan, to whom Edmund of Lancaster surrendered the barony in 1267, was the son of William Cogan, who was a grandson of Fulk Paynel, being the son of Fulk's daughter Christiana by her husband Miles de Cogan. Miles de Cogan was according to the antiquary Sir William Pole the great soldier and undertaker of the Irish Conquest. John de Cogan was recorded as holding his lands at Bampton by the feudal tenureper baroniam by the service of 1 knight's fee and performed the service in 1277 Risdon stated that at Bampton the Cogans "had...a very stately house and kept great entertainment when they lived here, and having greater possessions in Ireland for the most part dwelt there".
Thomas de Cogan, son and heir
Richard de Cogan On 17 March 1336 Richard Cogan obtained a royal licence to crenellate his mansion-house at Baumton, and to enclose his wood of Uffculme and 300 acres of land for a deer-park. The house is believed by Lysons to have been near the castle keep, but no remains of the buildings survive. It was the residence of the Cogans and their successors, down to the time of the Bourchiers. He married Mary Montagu, a daughter of William Montagu, 2nd Baron Montagu
John Cogan, who died as a minor in the wardship of the king, was the son of Sir William Cogan by his second wife Isabel Loring, the elder daughter and co-heiress of Sir Nele Loring, KG, of Knowstone and Landkey in Devon and of Chalgrave, Bedfordshire, a founding member of the Order of the Garter. John's heiress was his sister Elizabeth Cogan, the wife of Fulk FitzWarin, 5th Baron FitzWarin, who from his mother Margaret Audley, 3rd daughter and co-heiress of James Audley, 2nd Baron Audley, feudal baron of Barnstaple, was the heir to the manor of Tawstock which had become the later seat of the feudal barons of Barnstaple, and where the Bourchiers later made their principal seat.
FitzWarin
The FitzWarin family were powerful Marcher Lords seated at Whittington Castle in Shropshire and at Alveston in Gloucestershire. The title Baron FitzWarin was created by writ of summons for Fulk FitzWarine in 1295. The descent of the barony of Bampton in the FitzWarin family is as follows:
Fulk FitzWarin, 5th Baron FitzWarin, husband of Elizabeth Cogan, heiress of Bampton.
Sir Richard Hankford married as his first wife Elizabeth FitzWarin, 8th Baroness FitzWarin. Upon her death the barony must have been in abeyance between her daughters Thomasine Hankford, born and baptised at Tawstock, and Elizabeth Hankford until the death of the latter in 1433, when Thomasine became 9th Baroness.
Bourchier
The Bourchier family, the Devon branch of which, seated at Tawstock Court, was later created Earls of Bath, retained the manor of Bampton until at least the time of Risdon who states in his Survey of Devon that "the Earl of Bath is lord of this manor". The descent of Bampton was as follows:
Fulk Bourchier, Baron FitzWarin. He requested in his will to be buried at Bampton near the graves of his parents. He married Elizabeth Dinham, one of the four sisters and co-heiresses of John Dynham, 1st Baron Dynham , KG, of Nutwell, Devon. Elizabeth remarried to Sir John Sapcotes, and a stained glass heraldic escutcheon survives in Bampton church showing the arms of Sapcotes impaling Dinham.
John Bourchier, 1st Earl of Bath, created Earl of Bath in 1536. He married Cecilia Daubeny, daughter of Sir Giles Daubeney and heiress of her brother Henry Daubeney, Earl of Bridgewater. His magnificent tomb with effigies of himself, his wife and their eight children was situated in the Bourchier Chapel of Bampton Church until its destruction after 1770
An old mansion near Bampton Castle, called Castle Grove, was the residence of the Tristram family, who according to Lysons probably purchased it from the Bourchiers. A mural monument to John Tristram, last of the family to occupy the estate of Duvale within the parish of Bampton, exists in the parish church. In 1822, the site of the castle was the property of Robert Lucas, Esq., heir to the Tristram family.
Arnold
In 1720, the manor of Bampton was owned by William Arnold, gentleman.
Fellows
In 1720, the manor of Bampton was purchased from William Arnold by William Fellowes, Esquire, and his brother Sir John Fellowes, 1st Baronet Deputy Governor of the South Sea Company. The latter died childless. ;William Fellowes
"Deeds re £30,000 for purchase of estate for William Fellowes, his son-in-law, left by will of Joseph Martyn 1715; manors of Eggesford, Chawley, Borriston, Cheldon, Cudlip, East Warlington, Witheridge, Drayton; hundred of Witheridge; capital messuage called Eggesford, and farm and advowson, Devon, and manor of Mountsey and estates, Somerset, Lord Doneralle to William Fellowes 1718".
;Coulson Fellows ;Henry Arthur Fellows
Wallop/Fellows
In 1822, it was the property of the Honourable Newton Fellows, of Eggesford. He had been born with the name "Newton Wallop", and was the younger son of John Wallop, 2nd Earl of Portsmouth by his wife Urania Fellows, sister of Henry Arthur Fellows. Newton Wallop changed his name to Fellows after having become heir to the Fellows' estates, including Eggesford and Bampton, and eventually inherited the Earldom of Portsmouth as 4th Earl of Portsmouth, after the death of his elder brother John Wallop, 3rd Earl of Portsmouth.
