Nutwell

[7] The manor of Nutwell, together with nearby Harpford, were granted by King Henry I (1100-1135) to Geoffrey I, Sire de Dinan,[8] near St Malo in Brittany.

In 1122 Geoffrey granted Nutwell and Harpwell to the Abbey of Marmoutier at Tours for the benefit of the dependent priory of St Malo at Dinan.

Nutwell was described as "land of Rolland de Dinan" in 1168, but had been taken into the king's hands and produced revenue for the royal exchequer of 14s, accounted for by the Sheriff of Devon.

[29] A monument thought to date from the late 16th century survives in Woodbury Church showing on a tomb chest two recumbent figures said to be of a Prideaux and his wife.

The last in the male line Sir Francis Drake, 5th Baronet (1723-1794) is said by Hoskins (1954) "to have wrecked the fine medieval house with his improvements demolishing the two-storied gatehouse with great difficulty in 1755-6 and cutting through the timbered roof of the 14th century chapel to make a plaster ceiling".

John Swete visited Nutwell while the Drake era house was still standing and made at least four watercolour paintings of it and one of the gothic chapel.

[49] He described the 5th Baronet thus: "Though refined in his manners and from his appointment at court versed in the fashionable world, he was yet one of the shyest men; very few of the principal gentlemen of the county had any acquaintance with him and not many knew him personally".

[51] In May 1799 Swete again visited Nutwell, made a painting of the new house, and recorded in his journal "the new mansion erected by the present proprietor Lord Heathfield, tho' yet unfinished exhibits itself most charmingly to the view"[52] He described him as equally defensive of his privacy as his uncle Sir Francis Drake, denying access to Nutwell and its grounds to neighbours and strangers alike.

[56] He was succeeded according to the special remainder by his nephew, Sir Francis George Augustus Fuller-Eliott-Drake, 2nd Baronet (1837-1916), a son of the younger of his two brothers, who had also adopted the additional surnames.

The second Baronet's only child Elizabeth Fuller-Eliott-Drake married John Eliott-Drake-Colborne, 3rd Baron Seaton (1854–1933), who also adopted the surnames Eliott and Drake.

[62] The chapel survives attached to the present neo-classical building, in a position slightly recessed from the south front and extending eastward.

Swete's watercolour of the east end shows the surviving arrangement of crocketed finials projecting outward on corbels over the string course with canopied niches containing much weathered statues of St George and the Archangel Michael.

Nutwell Court in the parish of Woodbury, Devon. The "exquisitely precise and austere neo-classical mansion" [ 1 ] rebuilt in 1799. West front (River Exe front)
Nutwell Court, built circa 1800 by Francis Augustus Eliott, 2nd Baron Heathfield (1750-1813), on the site of an earlier house
The newly rebuilt Nutwell Court as painted by Rev. John Swete (d.1821) during his travels of May 1799. Viewed from River Exe estuary
Arms of Dynham: Gules, four fusils in fess ermine
Arms of Prideaux: Argent, a chevron sable in chief a label of three points gules [ 26 ]
Arms of Ford of Nutwell: [ 34 ] Party per fesse or and sable, in chief a greyhound courant in base an owl within a bordure engrailed all counter-changed
Arms of Pollexfen: Quarterly argent and azure, in the 1 and 4 quarter a lion rampant gules
Arms of Drake of Buckland Abbey & Nutwell: Sable, a fess wavy between two estoiles argent
"Old Nutwell, seat of late Sir Francis Drake". Undated watercolour by Rev. John Swete (died 1821) made before 1799 when the present neo-classical house was built in its place
Nutwell Court, north front rebuilt in 1799
The 14th-century Nutwell Chapel. Watercolour of east window by Rev. John Swete (d.1821) made before 1799 when it was incorporated into the present neo-classical Nutwell Court
Nutwell Court, view from south-east showing south facade of 1799 rebuilt Georgian house and mediaeval chapel of the Dinham family