Boringdon Hall

In about 956 the Saxon King Edgar (959 75) granted the royal manors of Boringdon and Wembury to Plympton Priory of St Peter. Following the Dissolution of the Monasteries King Henry VIII granted Boringdon to Thomas Wriothesley, 1st Earl of Southampton. In 1549 Wriothesley sold the manor to Richard Mayhew (or "Mayhowe" etc.), gentleman, of Tavistock, Devon. In 1582 Richard Mayhew's granddaughter Frances Mayhew, daughter and heiress of Jeronemy Mayhew, became the wife of John Parker (1563–1610) of North Molton in North Devon. Boringdon remained in the ownership of the Parker family, later Barons Boringdon and Earls of Morley, until the 20th century. John Parker and his wife the Mayhew heiress…

The oldest parts of the present house were said by John Britton (1771–1857) to have been built about the middle of the 14th century. Britton believed the main entrance porch, consisting of a semicircular arch with Norman-style cable mouldings, to be of ancient date, brought from some neighbouring church, or even Plympton Castle. Due to subsequent alterations the building is difficult to date accurately, and Nikolaus Pevsner states it to be "irritating for the historian" as it incorporates a multitude of imported period features and materials, giving it "a superficially convincing instant patina". The house was described by Polwhele in the 18th century as "ruinous". In about 1800 the whole…