Spitchwick

The present 19th century mansion house known as Spitchwick Manor is situated four miles north-west of Ashburton,[3] the gardens of which are open to the paying public.

As listed in the Domesday Book of 1086, SPICEWITE was the 48th of the 72 manors held in demesne by King William the Conqueror in the County of Devon.

[7] The large manor of Widecombe-in-the-Moor on Dartmoor was acquired by John Dunning (1731–1783), from 1782 1st Baron Ashburton, and included a farm called "Park", to which shortly after his acquisition he had "added a room or two".

[10] But his main acquisition of lands had been to the detriment of the ancient Gould family of Devonshire, which traced its roots back to a certain "John Gold", a crusader present at the Siege of Damietta in (1218–19).

[14] It had been Dunning's original intention to build a grand mansion elsewhere in Devon, on his estate of Sandridge in the parish of Stoke Gabriel, as he informed Rev John Swete to whom he was showing that new purchase, also in the company of Sir Robert Palk, 1st Baronet (1717-1798), who also expanded a large mansion and planted vast expanses of woodland at Haldon House, having also had a change of mind as to location, in his case from Tor Mohun to Haldon.

He was at first "struck with the beauty and grandeur of the spot (i.e. of Sandridge) and...then express'd an intention of raising an house on it that should be more worthy than the present of the situation".

As for Lord Ashburton's change of mind, Swete remarked: "He soon dropt all thoughts of proceding with the plans he had form'd at Sandridge; Park indeed was a situation more congenial to Lord Ashburton's mind; it was wild and romantic; he delighted its softening the harsh and rude features of the scene around him and in its meliorating the grounds, which lay almost in a state of nature, neglected and uncultur'd".

Lord Ashburton created at Spitchwick (on the site of a chapel dedicated to St. Laurence[14]) a mansion in which "he much delighted to reside"[15] and where he "escap'd from the trammels of State and the bustle of the Great Town, and enjoy'd the otium cum dignitate.

The second day I found a reef showing gold, which assayed on the surface 6 penny weights, and at 50 feet had improved so that the sum had reached nearly 2 ounces.