Stafford, Dolton

[2] Many additions and renovations have taken place in the intervening years, and in the early 20th century Charles Luxmoore made many alterations and extensions and imported several major architectural features from ancient local mansions undergoing demolition so that "it has become somewhat difficult to discern its original form".

The other manors and landholdings he held in Devonshire were: one virgate of land in Great Torrington; Brimblecombe; Cheldon; Muxbere; Sutton; Dolton.

[8] The manor was called "Stowford" during the mediaeval era, and was held for many generations by a gentry family of unknown origins named Kelloway (or Kellaway, etc.).

He left a daughter as his sole heiress who married into the Northcote family, bringing them several estates including Dowland and Iddesleigh.

[2] It was sold in 1912 to Charles Frederick Coryndon Luxmoore (1872–1933), FSA, FRGS, formerly a Captain in the 3rd Cheshire Regiment, and particularly noted as an explorer of the Amazon.

Charles Luxmoore-Brooke (1824–1890), 37th Regiment of Foot, of Ashbrook Hall in Cheshire and of Witherdon, Broadwoodwidger and Germansweek in Devon, who was aide de camp to the Governor of Ceylon in 1855 and served in the Indian Mutiny of 1857.

Charles Luxmoore carried out substantial alterations to Stafford Barton, most notably the addition of a crenellated West Wing[2] in which he installed a very large decorative plaster ceiling of circa 1600, removed from an Elizabethan house in Barnstaple, and other architectural items taken from nearby recently demolished historic houses.

On 23 August 1956 the "freehold sporting and agricultural property known as the Stafford Barton Estate" was offered for sale by direction of "the executors of the late Mrs R.M.A.

It included the "part 13th-century manor house of great charm" with six principal and six secondary bedrooms, four bathrooms, spacious panelled reception rooms, staff wing, excellent outbuildings" etc., with about 1,460 acres of land, seven "well-maintained" and "well-let" farms, several cottages and smallholdings with six miles of salmon and trout fishing on the River Taw, all producing an annual rent of £1,580.

The Croxtons restored the gardens, and in the house they discovered a variety of false walls, concealed doors, and secret cupboards, some of which contained historical objects including a human skull dated from the mid 19th century.

In 1971 Zuckermann reported in a letter to the New York weekly newspaper Village Voice that he had been able to buy Stafford for "no more than the average suburban one-family house in New Jersey".

[20] The date Zuckermann left Stafford Barton is unknown, but advertisements and directory entries for his harpsichord business list him there up to 1973.