Peamore, Exminster
[10] Upon the attainder of Bonville's eventual heir Henry Grey, 1st Duke of Suffolk (1517–1554), all of his estates escheated to the crown.
One of Tothill's sisters, Elizabeth Tothill, married Thomas Stukley (c. 1525–1578), the third son of Sir Hugh Stukley (1496–1559) of Affeton in the parish of West Worlington, Devon, and head of an ancient gentry family, a Knight of the Body to King Henry VIII and Sheriff of Devon in 1545.
Beneath the south window of St Martin's Church, Exminster, is a coffin-shaped stone with the inscription: Here lyeth the Body of Henry Tothill of Peamore Esq: who dyed the 9th day of December Ano 1640, ætatis suæ 78.
Mary the only wife of ye aforesaid Henry and sole Daughter and Heire of Nicholas Sparke, Gent: lieth also here.
Grace died aged 18, having produced three children; a son Henry (living in 1640) and daughters Elizabeth and Ann.
John Swete visited the area and noted in his journal the ancient mansion of "Matford Dinham" had been an ancient seat of the Dinhams and Northleighs, and "a century ago of respectability among the mansions in the neighbourhood, is now on the verge of ruin and desolation, by an anticlimax it has pass'd from the hands of the gentleman to those of the farmer and is now become the habitation of a family or two of labourers, dilapidated and overspred with huge volumes of ivy, it will perhaps soon become untenantable".
[31] Henry's son Stephen Northleigh (c. 1692 – ?1731) of Peamore was MP for Totnes from 1713 to 1722, which seat he obtained on the interest of his cousins the Yarde family.
In 1738, John Hippisley Coxe (1715–1769) of Ston Easton, Somerset, married Mary Northleigh (died 1773),[34] heiress of Peamore.
In 1789 he noted in his journal it was then the residence of Sam Strode, Esquire,[36] (died 29 August 1795),[37] lord of the manor and hundred of Crediton in 1790,[38] who had purchased a life-interest lease from Henry Hippisley Coxe.
In 1789 Swete noted concerning Peamore: The foregoing sketch was taken near the road leading into the house just within the gate of entrance in the front of a noble and magnificent grove of elms.
But the chief beauty of Peamore lies in the undulating form of its grounds, rising and falling in the regular alternation of hills and dales; in its woods, groves and trees and in a quarry which surrounded by a thicket of high towering oaks, beech, etc., is one of the grandest and most romantic objects in the country.
[39]Swete revisited the area in 1800 and noted in his journal that "Mr Coxe of Peamore" had planted a "crest of firs" on top of a local conical hill owned by him, a "conspicuous knoll of a conical shape", in the parish of Exminster or Alphington, which he compared to a similarly shaped hill at Killerton.
[43] Samuel was the eldest son of William Kekewich (1736–1799) of Bowden House, Ashprington, Devon, who was a member of Royal Exchange Assurance.
After Robert had died, the third brother Lewis Pendarves Kekewich (1859–1947), JP., who had lived in Hove, Sussex, moved to Devon with his wife.
The sole survivor of four brothers who served in the Great War, and with another who had died in infancy, Sydney had no interest in taking on the burdens of an estate late in life and promptly sold Peamore in 1948.
