Little Fulford was a historic estate in the parishes of Shobrooke and Crediton,Little Fulford House stood on the parish boundary of Crediton and Shobrooke, according to Swete, p. 123 Devon. It briefly share ownership before 1700 with Great Fulford, in Dunsford, about to the south-west. The Elizabethan mansion house originally called Fulford House was first built by Sir William Peryam (1534–1604), a judge and Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer. It acquired the diminutive epithet "Little" in about 1700 to distinguish it from Fulford House, Dunsford and was at some time after 1797 renamed Shobrooke Park (the name of both the house and the landscape within which it sits), to remove all remaining confusion between the two places. Peryam's mansion was demolished in 1815 and a new house erected on a different site away from the River Creedy. This new building was subsequently remodelled in 1850 in an Italianate style. It was destroyed by fire in 1945 and demolished, with only the stable block remaining today. The landscaped park survives, open on the south side to the public by permissive access, and crossed in parts by public rights of way, with ancient large trees and two sets of ornate entrance gates with a long decorative stone multiple-arched bridge over a large ornamental lake. The large pleasure garden survives, usually closed to the public, with walled kitchen garden and stone walls and balustrades of terraces.www.shobrookepark.com, official website The park and gardens are Grade II listed in the National Register of Historic Parks and Gardens. The estate was the home successively of the families of Peryam, Tuckfield, Hippisley and lastly the Shelley baronets, in whose possession it remains today.
Descent Peryam
Fulford House was built by Sir William Peryam (1534–1604) Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer, who purchased the estate from Robert Mallet of Wolleigh,Gray, Todd & Rowe, Margery (Eds.), Travels in Georgian Devon: The Illustrated Journals of The Reverend John Swete, 1789–1800, 4 vols., Tiverton, 1999, Vol 3, p. 123 in the parish of Beaford, Devon. His monument survives in Holy Cross Church, Crediton. He left no male progeny and his estates were inherited by his four daughters and co-heiresses. Little Fulford was the share of his second daughter Elizabeth Peryam (1571–1635), the wife of Sir Robert Basset (1574–1641), MP, of Umberleigh and Heanton Punchardon, Devon.
Basset
A mural monument to Elizabeth Peryam (1571–1635), heiress of Little Fulford, and wife of Sir Robert Bassett (1574–1641) of Heanton Punchardon, North Devon, MP for Plymouth in 1593, is situated on the east wall of the Basset Chapel in Heanton Punchardon Church. She was one of the four daughters and co-heiresses of Sir William Peryam (1534–1604), Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer, by his second wife Anne Parker, daughter of John Parker of North Molton, Devon, ancestor of the Earls of Morley of Saltram House near Plymouth. She bore her husband two sons and four daughters,History of Parliament biography of Sir Robert Bassett, MP amongst whom was Colonel Arthur Basset, MP, who erected the monument. It is inscribed in Latin as follows: Memoriae Sacrum Dominae Elizabethae Bassett uxori Roberti Bassett militis clarissima stirpe oriundi filiae et cohaeredi Gulielmi Peryam militis Schaccarii Regii Baronis primarii Judicic integerrimi et religiosissimi piae prudenti justae patienti modestae castae temperanti constanti hospitali misericordi beneficae pauperum matri et medicae suae familiae conservatrici. Arthurus Bassett armiger filius eius primogenit(us) debitae gratitudinis et observantiae ergo H(oc) M(onumentum) M(atri)? M(aerens) P(osuit) Anno Domini 1635 aetatis suae 64 ad Dominum remeaunt. Should monuments goe by merit then surely thine, With pretious stone and orient pearle should shine, But since thy world of worth ye world doth know, This marble stone may serve thy name to show. "Many are the afflictions of the righteous but the Lord delivereth him out of them all". Psal. 34.19. Ita in fornacem prodiit aurum
Which may be translated literally into English as:
"Sacred to the memory of Lady Elizabeth Bassett wife of Robert Bassett, knight, arisen from a famous stock, daughter and co-heiress of William Peryam, knight, Lord Chief Justice of the Royal Treasury, (he was) most impartial and duty-bound, (she was) pious, prudent, just, long-suffering, modest, chaste, temperant, constant, hospitable, compassionate, kind, a mother and healer of the poor, a preserver of her own family. Arthur Bassett, Esquire, her sorrowing first-born son, of a duty of gratitude and respect therefore placed this monument to his mother in the year of Our Lord 1635 of her age 64 may she remain to the Lord...Thus does gold come forth into an oven".
Tuckfield
John II Tuckfield (1555–1630) John II Tuckfield (1555–1630) of Tedburn St Mary, purchased Little Fulford from Robert Basset and thenceforth made it his seat. He was the son and heir of John I (c. 1530 – c. 1586/89) and Joan Tuckfield of CreditonDRO:Z1/10/165 John I was son and heir of William Tuckfield clothier of Crediton (died c.1565) and his wife Joan daughter of John Kene of Upton Hellions.DRO: Z1/10/165 William was probably a kinsman of John Tuckfield the wealthy woollen-cloth merchant and Mayor of Exeter in 1549–50, the surviving portrait of whose wife Joan Tuckfield (1506–1573) is one of the oldest paintings in the collection of the Royal Albert Memorial Museum in Exeter. In 1797 the Devon topographer Rev. John Swete visited Little Fulford and recorded in his journal that the "large woollen manufactory" of the Tuckfield family "has ever since subsisted in these parts".Swete, (ed Gray), Vol. 3, p. 123 An elaborate monument survives in Crediton Church, next to Sir William Peryam's, erected by his son Thomas I Tuckfield (c.1585–1642), which shows a sculpted bust of John II Tuckfield on the left, of his son Thomas I on the right and a full figure of the latter's wife Elizabeth Reynell in the centre. John II Tuckfield married twice: having by his first wife Joan Morrish at least four children, and by his second wife Elizabeth Quicke at least seven children. Including: Joan Tuckfield (1579–??) who married Daniel Hamlyn (1584–1660) of Exwick and Paschoe, Colebrooke. Thomas I Tuckfield (c.1585–1642), eldest son and heir Walter Tuckfield (1603–1638), Rector of Morchard Bishop, which advowson had been purchased by his father in 1630, and where his mural monument survives in the chancel at St Mary's. Mary Tuckfield (1618–1663), who in 1638 married Dennis Prideaux (c.1618–1641), a younger son of Sir Thomas Prideaux (1575–1641) of Nutwell in the parish of Woodbury, near Lympstone. He was a fellow of Exeter College, Oxford, and Rector of Lympstone, and in 1639 was appointed by his brother-in-law Thomas Tuckfield as rector of Morchard Bishop in succession to his brother Walter Tuckfield (died 1638). Without progeny.Vivian, p. 625, pedigree of Prideaux Roger I Tuckfield (1607–1684), of Tedburn St Mary, who married Mary Hamlyn,(1607–1678) daughter of Thomas Hamlyn (1578–1618 brother of Daniel) and his wife Judith (1586-c.1652) daughter of Richard Mayne of Exeter (died 1603). Judith subsequently married Thomas Haydon (1562–1645) of Combe Lancey, Sandford, through whom the long lease on Combe Lancey descended to Roger and Mary. Roger I subsequently acquired Raddon in the parish of Thorverton, 4 miles north-east of Little Fulford. The couple's monument survives in St Thomas of Canterbury's Church, Thorverton.Pevsner, p. 803 They had at least ten children, of whom: His eldest son and heir Roger II Tuckfield (1635–1686/7) of Raddon married Margaret (daughter of William Davie of Dira, Sandford, second son of Sir John Davie of Creedy 1st Bart.) by whom he had three children: John Tuckfield (1681–1681). Roger III Tuckfield (1683/4–1739) of Raddon, MP for Ashburton, who died unmarried and without progeny. Margaret Tuckfield, (c.1685–1754) who married twice, firstly to the wealthy Samuel Rolle (1646–1719), MP, of Heanton Satchville, Petrockstowe, by whom she had a daughter, the sole heiress to her father, Margaret Rolle, 15th Baroness Clinton (1709–1781). Secondly she married John Harris (1690–1767). His second son John Tuckfield (1637–1705) of Exeter, Combe Lancey, and Cowick. His third son Thomas Tuckfield (1647–1710) of London, and Combe Lancey, Master of the Grocer's Company, London, close friend of William Lygon of Madresfield. Thomas Tuckfield married Mary Coles in 1673 at St George's, Southwark, by whom he had four children, of whom son and heir Roger Tuckfield (1676–1740) of Red Lyon Square, Holborn, London, (see later).
Thomas I Tuckfield (c.1585–1642) Thomas Tuckfield (c.1585–1642), eldest son and heir of John Tuckfield (1555–1630). His bust is on the right side of the Tuckfield Monument he erected in memory of his wife in Crediton Church. He married Elizabeth Reynell (1593–1630), 2nd daughter of Richard Reynell (died 1631) of Creedy Widger, a Bencher of the Middle Temple, by his wife Mary Peryam (died 1662), a daughter and co-heiress of John Peryam,Vivian, p. 645, pedigree of Reynell son of Sir John Peryam, brother of Sir William Peryam of Little Fulford.
Thomas II Tuckfield (died 1649) Thomas II Tuckfield (died 1649), eldest son and heir, died without progeny.
John III Tuckfield (1625–1675) John III Tuckfield (1625–1675), younger brother and heir. In 1667 he married Mary Pincombe, a daughter of John Pincombe (d.pre-1657), a barrister of the Middle Temple, of South Molton, Devon,Vivian, p.594, pedigree of Pincombe of South Molton by whom he had 5 children, 3 of whom died as infants. The ledger-stone with details to Mary, John, and their sons John and Pyncombe, at the east end, north aisle, of Holy Cross, Crediton. The surviving two daughters and co-heiresses were: Mary Tuckfield (1660–1728), who married twice: firstly in 1690 at Shobrooke to Col. Francis Fulford (1666–1700) of Great Fulford, Dunsford. They had one son John Fulford (1692–1693) who died an infant and whose monument survives in Dunsford Church. Mary married secondly in 1705 to Henry Trenchard (1668–1720).Vivian, p. 380, pedigree of Fulford of Fulford Elizabeth Tuckfield (1663–1695), unmarried.
Walter Tuckfield (1676) Walter Tuckfield (1676), youngest brother and heir. He died without progeny when the co-heirs to Little Fulford became his two teenaged nieces, the 15-year-old Elizabeth Tuckfield (died 1695) and the 13-year-old Mary Tuckfield (died 1728) (later Mrs Fulford and the Mrs Trenchard). Walter Tuckfield's ledger-stone with details is at the east end of the north aisle, Holy Cross, Crediton.
Col. Francis Fulford (1666–1700) Col. Francis Fulford (1666–1700) of Great Fulford, whose 2nd wife was the heiress Mary Tuckfield (died 1728). He was twice MP for Callington in Cornwall, in 1690–5 and 1698–1700, presumably upon the interest of the influential Rolle family of Heanton Satchville, Petrockstowe,History of Parliament biography cousins of his 2nd wife. It was at this time "When the two Fulfords were the possession of one lord" that the epithets "Great" and "Little" were assigned to each property.Swete, Vol.3, p. 123 According to Swete, Col. Fulford "May reasonably be supposed to have a predilection for his own inherited mansion to which for the sake of distinction and pre-eminence he would annex the adjunct of "Great". Nor will it be consider'd as an appropriation ill-placed, if the reference be made to its superior magnificence and antiquity, in which latter boast it exceeded the other by three centuries". The marriage was without progeny. His monument survives in Dunsford Church, carrying the Fulford arms impaling those of Paulet/Powlet (his first wife, and Tuckfield.
Roger III Tuckfield (c.1683/4–1739) of Raddon