Sir John Chichester, 4th Baronet

Sir John Chichester, 4th Baronet (1689 – 2 September 1740) of Youlston Park in the parish of Shirwell near Barnstaple, Devon was a British landowner and Tory politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1734 to 1740.

West Sandford was a very large mansion about 2 1/2 miles NW of Crediton, near the ancient Chichester estate of Ruxford, of which a watercolour painting was made in 1797 by the Devon topographer Rev.

The latter wrote of West Sandford in his Travel Journal in 1797 as follows: "The appearance of this house, built with brick and decorated with white mouldings, is of great respectability.

Its contiguous gardens with high walls and large gates and the groves that shelter it on the NE speak it to have been the residence of some person of consequence who had a relish for things of former days and was too advanced in years to adopt the improvements of modern taste.

Beheld in its two fronts from a rising point of the public road it had such extent of building as to possess a degree of magnificence; nor has it less to recommend itself for its situation, having spread out before its windows some of the richest pasture ground in the county.

Arms of Chichester: Chequy or and gules, a chief vair
Youlston House, Shirwell, Devon, 19th-century engraving with caption: "Goulson [sic], Devonshire, the seat of Sir A. Chichester, Bart., to whom this plate is respectfully inscribed by the publishers".
"Sandford, seat of Sir John Chichester, Bart." (i.e. Sir John Chichester, 6th Baronet (died 1808, grandson of the 4th Bt). Water-colour painting of West Sandford House, 2 1/2 miles NW of Crediton, Devon, by Rev. John Swete, 1797. Devon Record Office, 564M/F11/118