Robert Dennis (MP)

In March 1591, he founded the Livery Dole Almshouses in Heavitree Road, to the east of Exeter, near which site in 1531/32 his father, as Sheriff of Devon, had supervised the burning at the stake of the Protestant martyr Thomas Benet.

In his will, he requested that the building should be completed by his son, Sir Thomas Denys (1559–1613) (erroneously stated on a stone tablet above the entrance gate to have been his brother).

[citation needed] Sir Robert Dennis stated in his will dated 25 July 1592 and proved 22 September 1592, that he had "designed to set aside a plot of ground and to erect an alms-house and chapel for a certain number of poor people with weekly stipends and certain yearly commodities, as would appear in a devise signed and sealed by him".

A "peppercorn" chief rent of one penny per annum was payable by the Livery Dole Hospital to the lord of the manor of Heavitree.

The tablet contains also a heraldic escutcheon sculpted in relief showing ten quarterings of the Dennis family:[15][c]