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Summary

Clovelly was a royal manor at the time of Domesday.

Location

Protected Status: none recorded

Other References/Statuses: none recorded

Monument Type(s) and Dates

• MANOR (First mentioned, XI - 1086 AD to 1086 AD)

Full description

Collings, A. G. + Weddell, P. J., 2004, Archaeological Assessment of Proposed Clovelly Sewage Treatment Works (Report - Assessment). SDV336055.

The earliest mention of Clovelly is to be found in the Domesday Survey, when it was a royal manor, having previously been held by Brictric and then Queen Matilda, and it presumably passed to King William on her death in 1083. The survey records the full complement of 12 ploughs on the manor, five of them working the lord's demesne, but there was a large amount of pasture, '1 league long and 1/2 league wide', which it has been suggested may refer to clifftop grazing. There was no indication that the maritime environment was being exploited at that date. The manor boundary may well be represented by today's civil parish boundary.
In 1243 Sir Roger Giffard held Clovelly of Sir Walter Giffard. By 1284-6 it was held by Matthew Giffard of Robert Dinham for one knight's fee and in 1290 King Edward I granted the former a Wednesday market and a fair during the vigil, feast and morrow of All Saints. As the manor of Hartland, four miles away, had been granted a Tuesday market and two fairs at the festivals of St Nectan and St Andrew during the previous decade, it is likely that Clovelly was of some trading significance, or at least intended significance, perhaps involved in trade with Ireland.
In January 1297, as war with France threatened, Clovelly was named in a list of nearly a hundred ports from which the King decreed that no one might leave the realm without his special licence, and the following April all shipping of 40 tuns or upward was requisitioned from the same ports. The granite pillars for the arcade in Clovelly church, said to have been brought from Lundy, are likely to have arrived at the primitive quay some hundred years later.
A taxation list survives from 1332, when both John de Staunton and Robert Maundeuyle were taxed at 6s 8d, but with none of the other 22 named in the parish paying more than 2s. In 1346 the two jointly held the manor in socage of the honour of Gloucester. By 1388 it was William Cary who was in possession, held of Edward le Despenser's honour of Gloucester, and the family were to remain resident lords of Clovelly for most of the period until 1738.

Sources / Further Reading

Associated Monuments: none recorded

Associated Finds: none recorded

Associated Events: none recorded

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