Bicton-Post!! Traditional Cache

Yettington






In the reign of King Henry I (1100–1135) the manor of Bicton was held by a man named Janitor, who held the manor by the feudal tenure of grand serjeanty requiring him to provide a county jail, which was an honourable position of trust. The Latin noun Janitor means "door-keeper", generally understood in the sense janitor carceris, "door-keeper of a jail". Thus the tenant took his surname from his form of tenure. The prison was later transferred to the county capital Exeter, but the feudal tenant of Bicton was nevertheless for many centuries required to meet part of the repair & maintenance costs of the newly-sited jail. Swete states that Dennis Rolle Esq., the proprietor of Bicton at the time of his visit, had paid the sum of £1,000 to the Treasury to be released in perpetuity from his vestigial feudal liabilities.

At a later period the manor came into the possession of the Copplestone family, which held much land in Devon, including the manor of Tamerton Foliot.

Bicton was purchased from the Copplestones by Sir Robert Denys (1525–1592), MP, who built a mansion house near the site of the present Orangery, now within the Bicton Botanical Gardens. He was the son of Sir Thomas Denys (d.1561) of Holcombe Burnell, Sheriff Of Devon, Privy Councillor and Chancellor to Anne of Cleves. He received a royal licence to empark, and stocked his new park with deer. He added formal gardens with slopes, terraces and parallelogram ponds. His son Sir Thomas Denys (1559–1613) married Anne Paulet, daughter of William Paulet, 3rd Marquis of Winchester and had issue two daughters, co-heiresses. The eldest was Anne Denys, who by her marriage to Sir Henry Rolle (d.1616) of Stevenstone, brought Bicton to the Rolle family. The younger daughter Margaret Denys (d.1649) married Sir Arthur Mainwaring of Ightfield, Shropshire, carver to Prince Henry, eldest son of King James I

Arms of Rolle: Or, on a fesse dancetté between three billets azure each charged with a lion rampant of the first three bezants

Dennis Rolle (d.1638) was the son and heir of Sir Henry Rolle and Anne Denys, and was buried at Bicton. His elaborate tomb monument  with heraldic achievement is contained within the Rolle Mausoleum, the remnant of the former Parish Church of Bicton to the immediate east of which stands the new church of St Mary built in 1850. The Mausoleum is the private property of Lord Clinton and is not open to the public. The inscription on his monument is as follows:

"The remains of Dennis Rolle Esq.
His earthly part within this tombe doth reste
Who kept a court of honour in his breast
Birth, beauty, wit and wisdom sat as Peeres
Till Death mistook his virtues for his yeares
Or else Heaven envy'd Earth so rich a treasure
Wherein too fine the ware too scant the measure
His mournefull wife her love to shew in part
This tombe built here a better in her heart
Sweet babe his hopful heyre (Heav'n grant this boon)
Live but so well but oh! dye not so soon.
Obiit anno D(omi)ni 1638 Aetatis 24 Reliquit filium unum aes quinque ("He died in the year of Our Lord 1638 of his age 24. He left one son, age 5")

His widow's wish was not met and the couple's son Dennis died soon after his father, leaving only daughters who were excluded from the inheritance by entail. The manor of Bicton, together with all the other Rolle estates including Stevenstone then passed to Henry Rolle (1605–1647) of Beam, near Torrington, the elder son of John Rolle (1563-post 1628), MP, the uncle of Sir Henry Rolle (d.1617). He himself died without progeny and the Rolle estates, now increased by the addition of Beam, devolved following his death in 1647 upon his closest male cousin, 21 year-old Sir John Rolle (1626–1706), MP, of Marrais in the parish of St Mary Week, Cornwall. He was immediately thereupon married to his young cousin Florence Rolle of Bicton, one of the surviving daughters of Denys Rolle (d.1638). Thus his claim to the Inheritance of Rolle of Stevenstone and Bicton was strengthened and consolidated. The estates stayed in the hands of his descendants until the death of his great-great-grandson John Rolle, 1st Baron Rolle (1750–1842), who died at Bicton House aged 86. His elaborate monument  designed by Pugin exists in the Rolle Mausoleum next to the Victorian parish church

In 1822 at the age of 66 the childless Baron Rolle married, as his second wife, his very distant cousin the 28 year-old Louisa Trefusis (d.1885). Whilst Rolle himself was descended from George Rolle (d.1573), the second son of the founder of the family, George Rolle of Stevenstone(d.1552), MP for Barnstaple, Louisa was descended from his 4th son Henry Rolle, who had married Margaret Yeo, the heiress of Heanton Satchville, Petrockstowe, Devon. Henry Rolle's great-grandson Robert Rolle (d.1660), MP, of Heanton Satchville, had married Lady Arabella Clinton, one of the two co-heiresses of their nephew Edward Clinton, 13th Baron Clinton and 5th Earl of Lincoln. On the extinction of the senior line of the Rolle-Clinton union on the death of George Walpole (d.1791), 16th Baron Clinton, their heir became the descendants of their daughter Bridget Rolle (1648–1721) who had married in 1672 Francis Trefusis of the manor of Trefusis in Cornwall. Louisa Trefusis, the second wife of Baron Rolle, was 5th in descent from Francis Trefusis and Bridget Rolle, being the daughter of Robert George William Trefusis (1764–1797), 17th Baron Clinton, of Trefusis, Cornwall. A marble bust of Louisa exists in the Orangeryat Bicton. Louisa and Rolle shared a love of gardening and created the grand landscaped garden at Bicton, now open to the public as Bicton Park Botanical Gardens. An American traveller Elihu Burritt visited Bicton in 1864 and described her hostess in terms of great praise:^[9]

"This lady is a remarkable woman, without equal or like in England...she is a female rival of Alexander the Great. The world that the Grecian conqueror subjugated was a small affair in space compared with the two hemispheres which this English lady has taken by the hair of the head and bound to her chair of state. It seems to have been her ambition for nearly half a century to do what was never done before by man or woman in filling her great park and gardens with a collection of trees and shrubs that should be to them what the British Museum is to the relics of antiquity and the literature of all ages".

Rolle's second marriage also produced no progeny, and at his death in 1842 Rolle decided to appoint as his heir Louisa's younger nephew, the six-year-old Hon. Mark George Kerr Trefusis(1836–1907), the younger brother of Charles Trefusis (1834–1904) 20th Baron Clinton. Whether his marriage to Louise had been by chance or design, in fact the Trefusis Barons Clinton would have had an excellent claim to be his closest kin and legal heirs. Thus Rolle had followed his family's ancient practice of keeping the estates "in the family". His will required his young heir to change his name to Rolle, which he duly performed, and to adopt the Rolle arms in lieu of those of Trefusis. However, his design to revive the Rolle family was ultimately unsuccessful as Mark Rolle produced only two daughters and no son, and the Rolle inheritance passed to his male heir, his nephew, Charles John Robert Trefusis (1863–1957), 21st Baron Clinton.