Whitechapel, Bishops Nympton
[3] The core of the present manor house is late 16th or early 17th century, with later additions and alterations, and was classed as Grade I listed on 9 June 1952.
[4] The 1086 Domesday Book entry for the very large manor of Nimetone, with land for 52 ploughs, is listed as one of 24 holdings of the Bishop of Exeter, and was held by him in demesne.
[7] Next to the manor house there are remains seemingly of a gothic window below ground level within a low building, but the evidence is not certain that this relates to the Whitechapel.
[8] This ancestry may be incorrect as several different Bassett families existed in ancient times which modern historians have been unable to link to a common ancestor.
Risdon transcribed a deed dated 1383 (6 Richard II) which was a grant made at Tehidy by Sir William Basset of the reversion of the "rents and service" of White Chapel in the county of Devon after the decease of its then tenants John Blake and his wife Joan.
Her inheritance included Heanton Punchardon and Umberleigh,[15] whilst Shirwell went to the Chichesters,[16] of Raleigh, Pilton, from which family was her sister's husband.
[17] His inquisition post mortem states that he held Whitechapel not as a tenant-in-chief but from an overlord, namely Henry, Duke of Somerset (1519–1536), by service unknown, worth 100 shillings per annum.
[18] Sir John Bassett's eldest son and heir was John Bassett (died 1541) of Umberleigh, who married Frances Plantagenet, daughter and co-heiress of Arthur Plantagenet, 1st Viscount Lisle[19] (died 1542), KG, an illegitimate son of King Edward IV, and an important figure at the court of King Henry VIII.
Their son and heir was Sir Arthur Bassett (1541–1586),[19] MP, of Umberleigh, whose small chest tomb is now also situated in Atherington Church.
[19] He gave the ancient Bassett manor of Tehidy in Cornwall to his uncle George Bassett (died 1580),[21] who was buried in Illogan Church, the parish church of Tehidy, who founded there his own prominent dynasty which included Francis Basset, 1st Baron de Dunstanville and Basset (1757–1835).
[14] His Plantagenet blood had prompted him to join the two hundred or so other pretenders who made personal claims to the throne of England following the death of the last of the Tudors Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603) and the start of the reign of the first Stuart king James I (1603–1625), and this move, which had no chance of success, was viewed with great displeasure by the new king, from whose realm Bassett suddenly fled into France, "to save his head" according to Prince.
George Amorye (died 1598), the eldest son of John Damerie of South Molton,[29] is the first member of the family whose descendants can be traced with certainty.
[30] George also had a younger brother Robert Damorie, who married Prudence (died 1593), the widow of Sir John Pollard of Combe Martin.
His second daughter, Frances, brought the Amory lands including Whitechapel to her husband, Edward Gibbon (died 1707), whose monumental tablet is in Bishops Nympton Church.
[citation needed] However, the estate was not apparently in the sole possession of the Amory family from the early 1600s, as Westcote, writing in about 1630, stated "Whitechapel (is) now divided among divers.
In his book The Blackmore Country (1911), Frederick Snell reported that Whitechapel was owned by "Captain Glossop", adding that: the place is now in thoroughly good hands but it has naturally suffered from having been so long a farmhouse the occupiers of which were profoundly indifferent to its contents and history.
The present owner, Captain Glossop, when I met him, was bringing taste and energy to bear on the old mansion, although portions of it were beyond repair.
