The landscaped park survives, open on the south side to the public by permissive access, and crossed in parts by public rights of way, with ancient large trees and two sets of ornate entrance gates with a long decorative stone multiple-arched bridge over a large ornamental lake.
[6] The estate was the home successively of the families of Peryam, Tuckfield, Hippisley and lastly the Shelley baronets, in whose possession it remains today.
Fulford House was built by Sir William Peryam (1534–1604) Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer, who purchased the estate from Robert Mallet of Wolleigh,[7] in the parish of Beaford, Devon.
Little Fulford was the share of his second daughter Elizabeth Peryam (1571–1635), the wife of Sir Robert Basset (1574–1641), MP, of Umberleigh and Heanton Punchardon, Devon.
It is inscribed in Latin as follows: Which may be translated literally into English as: John II Tuckfield (1555–1630) of Tedburn St Mary, purchased Little Fulford from Robert Basset and thenceforth made it his seat.
John Swete visited Little Fulford and recorded in his journal that the "large woollen manufactory" of the Tuckfield family "has ever since subsisted in these parts".
[12] An elaborate monument survives in Crediton Church, next to Sir William Peryam's, erected by his son Thomas I Tuckfield (c.1585–1642), which shows a sculpted bust of John II Tuckfield on the left, of his son Thomas I on the right and a full figure of the latter's wife Elizabeth Reynell in the centre.
Walter Tuckfield's ledger-stone with details is at the east end of the north aisle, Holy Cross, Crediton.
[9] He was twice MP for Callington in Cornwall, in 1690–5 and 1698–1700, presumably upon the interest of the influential Rolle family of Heanton Satchville, Petrockstowe,[18] cousins of his 2nd wife.
[19] According to Swete, Col. Fulford "May reasonably be supposed to have a predilection for his own inherited mansion to which for the sake of distinction and pre-eminence he would annex the adjunct of "Great".
His monument survives in Dunsford Church, carrying the Fulford arms impaling those of Paulet/Powlet (his first wife, and Tuckfield.
Roger's first wife was Elizabeth daughter of Richard Dowdeswell, MP for Tewkesbury and High Sheriff of Worcestershire.
She also died unmarried, when under the entail it passed to a distant cousin, via the Northleigh family, Richard Hippisley (1774–1844), eldest son of Rev.
John Hippisley (1735–1822) of Stow-in-the-Wold, Gloucestershire by his wife Margaret Cox, eldest daughter of John Hippisley Cox (1715–1769) (builder of the Palladian mansion Ston Easton Park in Somerset) by his wife Mary Northleigh, daughter and heiress of Stephen Northleigh of Peamore, Exminster,[29] son of Henry Northleigh by his wife Susanna Toller, heiress of "Crediton Parks", the former park of the Bishop of Crediton.
She had "ardent zeal for the training of the deaf and dumb and of school masters for the poor" (as commented the Educational pioneer Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, 11th Baronet (1809–1898), both of whose wives were Charlotte's nieces) and in about 1836 she built a small school for the purpose at Posbury, a manor long owned by the Tuckfields 4 miles south-west of Little Fulford, in the lane opposite Posbury Chapel, built shortly before by her husband to cater for the rapidly expanding congregation of Crediton Church.
[33] Richard was succeeded by his eldest son John Henry Hippisley-Tuckfield (1801–1880), Sheriff of Devon in 1859 and Deputy Lieutenant of Somerset, who changed the name of the house to Shobrooke Park, after a coffin bound for Great Fulford was delivered in error to himself at Little Fulford, and in the hope of avoiding similar confusions in the future.
Sir Frederic Shelley, 8th Baronet (1809–1869), rector of Bere Ferrers, by his wife Charlotte Martha Hippisley (1812–1893), a daughter of Rev.
Frederic Shelley had been appointed by Richard Hippisley as curate of St Luke's Chapel, Posbury, built by him in 1836.
[37] Shobrooke House was used during the Second World War by St Peter's Court, a preparatory school evacuated from Broadstairs, Kent, and at 4 a.m. on 23 January 1945 whilst full of 70 schoolboys and staff it was destroyed by fire, causing the death of two pupils.
In 2014 he remains patron of St Luke's Chapel, Posbury, 4 miles south-west of Shobrooke, built in 1835 by his ancestor Richard Hippisley Tuckfield (died 1844).