Wadham, Knowstone

[3] Ulf, who before 1066 held Wadeham and other manors in Devon and elsewhere in Wessex, and still retained Wadeham under the Saxon King Edward the Confessor,[4] was one of only twenty[5] Saxon thanes in Devonshire who survived the Norman Conquest of 1066, retained their antiquated high status as thanes, and became tenants-in-chief under the new Norman king.

Risdon did however state that in the time of King Henry II (1154–1189) the lord of the manor of Knowstone was Ailmer de Brett.

[15] Knowstone was acquired together with the neighbouring manor of Molland by William de Bottreaux, who gave both churches to Hartland Abbey in 1160.

The estate of Beaple was inherited from his wife Margaret de Beaupel by Sir Nele Loring, KG (c. 1320 – 1386) one of the founding members and 20th Knight of the Order of the Garter, established by King Edward III in 1348.

They had the following progeny, two daughters and co-heiresses: On the division of Loring's lands between his co-heiresses Beaple fell to the lot of Lord Harrington, whose heiress brought it to the family of Bonville, whose heiress brought it to the Grey family, which forfeited all its lands to the crown on the execution of the Duke of Suffolk and his daughter Lady Jane Grey.

According to Risdon, Robert Pollard made it his family's home for many generations"[13] but certainly by 1653 it had passed to the ownership of the Courtenay family of Molland, as a deed of that date includes the manor of "Knowstone Beaples" in a long list of properties transferred into trust by John Courtenay and his wife Margaret.

His landholdings in Somerset were even more extensive than those in Devon and mostly consisted of properties forfeited by Sir John Cary, Chief Baron of the Exchequer.

These lands included Hardington Mandeville, a moiety of Chilton Cantelo, and premises in Trent (now in Dorset) he purchased jointly with Hankford in 1389.

William Wadham (died 1452) (son), of Merryfield, Sheriff of Devon in 1442,[26] whose monumental brass (said by Rogers (1888) to depict him with his mother[27]) survives in St Mary's Church, Ilminster, Somerset.

In Billings Directory of Devon, 1857, the Earl of Ilchester is listed as one of the three principal landowners in the parish of Knowstone[36] and similarly in John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales, 1870–72.

[37] The long-term tenant of Wadham under the Earls of Ilchester was a junior branch of the Courtenay family[38] of the adjoining manor of Molland.