Membland

Membland is an historic estate in the parish of Newton and Noss, Devon, situated about 8 miles south-east of the centre of Plymouth.

He suffered financial troubles and in 1899 the estate and Hall were sold to property developer John Headon Stanbury.

[4] Several of the estate's service buildings survive, including the Bull and Bear gatekeeper's lodge, stables, gasworks, forge and laundry.

[18] One of his parliamentary colleagues wrote of him:[17] Membland was purchased for his residence in 1757 by John Bulteel (1733–1801), a younger son of James Bulteel (1676–1757) of Tavistock and of Flete (adjacent to Membland), MP for Tavistock 1703–8 and 1711–15,[19] by his wife Mary Crocker, daughter and heiress of Courtenay Crocker (died 1740), of Lyneham, Yealmpton.

A mural monument to John Bulteel survives in Holbeton Church showing two oval escutcheons[20] the one at dexter showing the arms of Bulteel: Argent semée of billets gules, a bend of the last[21] with inescutcheon of pretence of Croker of Lyneham (Argent, a chevron engrailed gules between three crows proper), the one at sinister showing Bulteel quartering Croker, impaling: Gules, a stag's head and neck couped between three cross crosslets fitchy within a double tressure flory counter-flory or (Bellenden).

of Membland, late one of the Council of Fort St George in the East Indies, who died the 8th day of December 1796 aged 53".

In 1900 William Cresswell Gray, shipbuilder from Hartlepool, purchased Membland from John Headon Stanbury, who was a hotelier from Exeter.

Stanbury had bought the estate in the previous year and planned to develop the area that bordered the River Yealm.

In 1904 Gray purchased another estate, this time in Yorkshire called Thorp Perrow of about 5000 acres, and this became his preferred residence.

He continued to market the property, even making efforts during the early part of WWI by offering to extend the completion until the end of the war.

[34] As the war continued Gray offered the Hall, with a sum of £2000 for use as a convalescent home for wounded soldiers, but the authorities considered the running costs would be prohibitive.

By the time of Grays death in 1925 Membland Hall had still not been sold, although he had been successful in reducing the size of the estate to 500 acres in 1919 and eventually to 227 in 1924.

[35] The House was purchased after Gray's death by Stanley Thomas Pitts with 19 acres of ground; he demolished the building and sold off the salvaged materials.