Clinton Devon Estates
A later Trefusis Lord Clinton, having been forced by fire damage to abandon the ancient mansion house of Heanton Satchville in the parish of Petrockstowe, purchased a mansion in the adjoining parish of Huish and renamed the house Heanton Satchville, Huish, still the seat of Lord Clinton today.
The landholdings of the senior line of the Rolle family, seated at Stevenstone, were greatly expanded in the 17th century following the marriage of Sir Henry Rolle (d.1617) to Anne Denys, a daughter and co-heiress of Sir Thomas Denys (1559–1613) of Bicton in East Devon and of Holcombe Burnell on the opposite (western) side of Exeter, which went to the other sister and co-heiress.
He also acquired an estate in eastern Florida of 20,000 acres of virgin jungle, named Rollestown (on the site of today's San Mateo), in St Mark's in the Bay of Apalatchi, which was not a commercial success, and when following the Treaty of Versailles in 1783, Florida was ceded to the Spanish, it was exchanged by the government for an estate in the Bahama Islands, but at great loss to Rolle.
Due entirely to the Rolle inheritance he was the largest private landowner in Devon, and according to the Return of Owners of Land, 1873 his landholdings, of which he was life-tenant under his uncle's will, extended to 55,000 acres.
Harriet Trefusis (d.1958), the widow of Major Henry Nevile Fane (1883–1947), Coldstream Guards, a descendant in a junior line of the ancient Fane Earls of Westmorland, whose heraldic canting motto Ne Vile Fano ("do not defile the altar") recalls their descent from the even more ancient Neville family, Earls of Warwick.
Harriet's eldest son Charles Fane had been killed in action in World War II but had left a six-year-old son, Gerard Fane[2] (born 1934, died 2024), who thus became the eventual heir to the Trefusis estates and to the title Baron Clinton, which had fallen into abeyance between the daughters of the 21st Baron.
The property comprised 15,624 acres, including Hudscott House (the former Rolle seat) as lot 1, and the historic Brightley Barton, both in the parish of Chittlehampton, with 110 farms, 16 smallholdings, 125 cottages, numerous village shops, two licensed inns, with sporting rights including 5 miles of salmon fishing on the River Taw.
The estate owns 350 houses mostly in villages, let mainly to established local families, unfurnished on assured shorthold tenancies, "maintained to a high standard through a programme of regular repair and painting".
The estate owns and lets commercial property to 120 small and medium-sized businesses which employ in total about 1,500 people, mainly in rural East Devon.
The properties in East Devon include: Liverton Business Park, on the outskirts of Exmouth; South Farm Court, converted agricultural buildings one mile from Budleigh Salterton; Dotton Business Units, six converted agricultural buildings forming a light industrial estate near Bicton, between the villages of Newton Poppleford and Colaton Raleigh; the Old Sawmills Industrial Estate, a light industrial estate on the edge of Colaton Raleigh.
[12] Part of the estate's lands are used as allotments for the use of small-scale vegetable and flower growing by schools, families and individuals in several towns and villages.
Clinton reached home in Devon before Fraser reached his Scottish estate, and having arrived at Eggesford Station he immediately set his estate staff to work nearby in planting a forest of Douglas Firs, completed on 8 December 1919, now known as Flashdown Wood, part of Eggesford Forest.
The present Director (which post was formerly known as "Agent" or "Steward") is John Varley, appointed in 2000, a former executive at British Telecom and an officer in the Territorial Army and a board member of the Government quango Environment Agency.
[18] Regarding his family's role in the business Charles Fane-Trefusis stated:[20] Trustees of Devon Clinton Estates include:
