Ash, Braunton

In AD 973 Edgar the Peaceful repossessed Braunton for the Crown through an exchange with Glastonbury Abbey, thus retrieving a strategically important estate at the head of a major estuary.

Susan Pearce conjectures [1] that the King then placed a number of his thegns here providing each with a landholding which became the small estates which form an arc around Braunton to the north and east.

From Reginald, Earl of Cornwall, as recorded in the Cartae Baronum of 1166, Ash was held as half a knight's fee by Erchenbold, son of Simon de Flandrensis (Latin for "from Flanders/The Fleming").

A late 16th century[20] stone heraldic mural monument of Richard Bellew of Ash survives in Braunton Church, on the south aisle wall.

A document of 1695 records that Richard Peard and others farmed the rents on half of "one chief messuage or barton called Ashrogus and other lands in the parish of Braunton".

The Gothic text inscription underneath is as follows: "Here lyethe Lady Elyzabethe Bowcer daughter of John Erle of Bathe & sumtyme wyffe to Edwarde Chechester Esquyer the whyche Elyzabethe decessyd the XXXIIIth day of August in the yere of O_r Lorde God M Vc (i.e. 5*c) XLVIII apon whose soule God have m(er)cy".The brass is a palimpsest, engraved on the reverse is the face of a knight, with helmet unfinished, apparently containing an artistic error which led to its abandonment & reuse.

The location of "Bere" is uncertain, it may have been near Ash if it was the estate of Beare in the parish of Braunton described by Risdon (died 1640) as "the ancient dwelling of Richard de Charteray", which later descended via Baron FitzWarin to the Bourchiers, Earls of Bath.

George Beare was also seated at the estate of Frankmarsh,[55] near Barnstaple[56] and was a barrister of the Middle Temple and a judge of oyer and terminer during the reign of King Charles I.

The Land Tax [60] records indicate that in 1780, the Ash Barton Estate was occupied by Robert Dyer, tenant of Joseph Davie Bassett.

The Ash Barton Estate lies beyond the boundary of the extensive area of long, narrow fields seen on the Braunton tithe map.

The system appears to have been bounded by Buttercombe Lane, which may represent a ‘transhumance’ route taking livestock to graze on the high ground of Fullabrook Down.

The Devon County Historic Landscape Characterisation survey describes the fields around Ash Barton as 15th- to 18th-century enclosures possibly based to an extent on medieval boundaries.

The occurrence of the term ‘Gratton’ in the names of two fields - tithe map numbers 1136 and 1138 - immediately to the east of the Ash Barton Estate may confirm this.

The term is interpreted by Gover, Mawer and Stenton [65] as ‘stubble field’, but it is so common across Devon that it seems to have greater and more permanent significance than the seasonal ‘arish’.

Ash Barton
Arms of Fleming, Baron Slane: Vair, a chief chequy or and gules [ 8 ] These are by co-incidence the inverse of the arms of Chichester of Raleigh, later lords of the manor of Bratton Fleming, and possibly also of Ash (see below)
Arms of Bellew: Sable fretty or [ 13 ]
Arms of Fleming quartering Bellew, bench-end , St. Branock's Church, Braunton
16th century mural monument of Richard Bellew of Ash [ 18 ] and his wife Margaret St Ledger of Annery [ 19 ] in Braunton Church
Key to heraldry on Bellew monument, Braunton Church
16th century bench end in Monkleigh Church showing arms of St Leger family of Annery, with same six quarterings as in Braunton Church
Arms of Bourchier, Earls of Bath: Argent, a cross engrailed gules between four water bougets sable
Monumental brass to Elizabeth Bourchier (died 1548), Braunton Church
Mural monument to Balthazar Beare (1616–1682) of Ash, Braunton Church
Arms of Basset: Barry wavy of six or and gules