Holnicote /ˈhʌnɪˌkʌt/ (pronounced "Hunnicutt") in the parish of Selworthy, West Somerset, England, is a historic estate consisting of 12,420 acres (5,026 hectares) of land, much situated within the Exmoor National Park.

The house and surrounding estate were given to the National Trust in 1944 by Sir Richard Thomas Dyke Acland, 15th Baronet.

F. Hancock, who was said to have extensively studied the place-names of his parish, preferred the old English personal name Hùn for the first element.

Eventually, his grandson Thomas became owner of the manor and house of Holnicote; he is listed in Crown account books as early as 1558.

The Steynings family owned Holnicote until the direct male line became extinct with the death of Charles Staynings (1622–1700).

[14] Blackford then bought the manors of Bossington and Avill, the latter from Anthony Stocker and his wife, Sarah; this estate extended from the ridge of Grabbist nearly to the sea-shore and also included land in the parishes of Dunster, Carhampton, Crowcombe, Stogumber, Timberscombe and St.

[15][20] A prominent member of the West Country gentry, Acland was a famous staghunter who used his wife's Exmoor estates of Holnicote and Pixton as his hunting seats.

Respected and beloved by all the countryside, he was solicited at the same time to allow himself to be returned as member of Parliament for the counties of Devon and Somerset.

In his manor of Bossington (near Holnicote) alone an estate survey of 1746–1747 lists twelve tenements let, either by Acland or Dyke, with the requirement to keep a hound.

[24] In 1775 he handed over the mastership to the then Major Basset, and in 1779 his beloved collection of stag heads and antlers at Holnicote was lost in a fire which also destroyed the house.

His grandson died at the age of 7 a few weeks after inheriting the baronetcy and so his second son, Thomas Dyke Acland (1752–1794), became the ninth Baronet.

Like his father, he was known locally in Devon and Somerset as "Sir Thomas his Honour"[26] and they shared a passion for stag hunting.

[29] He was a stern employer of his hunt-staff, and on one occasion when his hounds had killed several sheep, possibly belonging to his farming tenants, he ordered his huntsman "to hang himself and the whole pack".

The site has been visited by humans since the Bronze Age with several burial mounds in the form of cairns and bowl barrows.

[44][45][46][47] Sweetworthy on the lower slopes is the site of two Iron Age hill forts or enclosures and a deserted medieval settlement.

[48][49][50][51][52] At the top of Selworthy Beacon is a National Trust plaque and a view of the south coast of Wales across the Bristol Channel.

[58] Near the summit are a series of cairns, thought to be the remains of round barrows,[59] and the Iron Age Bury Castle.

[54] Ling and bell heather, gorse, sessile oak, ash, rowan, hazel, bracken, mosses, liverworts, lichens and ferns all grow here or in surrounding woodland, as well as some unique whitebeam species.

[62] Selworthy is a small village and civil parish which includes the hamlets of Bossington, Tivington, Lynch, Brandish Street and Allerford.

In the 1990s rising sea levels created salt marshes, and lagoons developed in the area behind the boulder bank.

Selworthy was rebuilt as a model village, to provide housing for the aged and infirm of the Holnicote estate, in 1828 by Sir Thomas Acland.

[64] Many of the other cottages, some of which are now rented out, are still thatched and are listed buildings, whose walls are painted with limewash that has been tinted creamy yellow with ochre.

[93] Holnicote House was donated to the National Trust by Sir Richard Thomas Dyke Acland, 15th Baronet[60] of Killerton in Devon, whose ancestors had owned it since 1745.

[95][96] In 1943, Holnicote House was requisitioned by Somerset County Council, initially for use as a nursery for children evacuated from cities during World War 2.

However, the council increasingly took children born to white British mothers and Black American GI fathers, possibly as an intentional policy.

[98][99] Somerset appears to be the only county council which provided homes explicitly for babies born to Black GIs.

Professor Lucy Bland, who interviewed over sixty children born to white mothers and Black American GI fathers for her 2019 book Britain's 'Brown Babies, talked to five people who were raised at Holnicote House, as well as three nursery nurses who worked there.