Langley, Yarnscombe
It was long the seat of a junior branch of the Pollard family of Way in the parish of St Giles in the Wood, Devon, 3 miles to the south.
[2] On the failure of the male line, a daughter of the family brought Langley to her husband Roger Pollard "who planted himself so firmly in this place that his posterity have hitherto possessed the same".
It is possibly he (or his father) who erected the surviving heraldic panel above the front door of Langley Barton showing the arms of Pollard in four quarters and the initials "RP".
He may have been the Richard Pollard who between 1640 and 1651 was the "Gentleman Steward" to the princely household[31] of Henry Bourchier, 5th Earl of Bath (1593–1654) at Tawstock Court, 3 miles north of Langley.
[32] However it is known that the wife of the steward Richard Pollard was Sara Voysin (d. 1652) (marriage at Swimbridge, near Tawstock, on 14 Apr 1646) of Geneva, Switzerland, a "gentlewoman of impeccable antecedents in Continental Protestantism",[33] who was an attendant of the Earl's wife, and whose surviving mural monument in Tawstock Church is inscribed as follows: George Pollard (1606-pre1659) (eldest son), died without progeny.
On a black tablet underneath, with damage, is inscribed the following Latin text: Above at the centre top of the monument is shown an escutcheon showing arms quarterly of four, 1 & 4: Argent, a chevron sable between three escallops gules (Pollard); 2nd: Argent, a chevron sable between three mullets pierced gules(de Via (alias de Way) of Way in the parish of St Giles in the Wood); 3rd: On a fess wavy a lion passant (Lovering?
