5. Lord Hambleden’s Farms

W.H. Smith – first Lord Hambleden and owner of a national chain of station bookstalls, bought 5,200 acres of the Earl of Devon’s East Dartmoor estate in 1890 for £103,000. It consisted of the lordship of several large ancient manors including Manaton, Moretonhampstead and North Bovey; property in Moretonhampstead and most of the village of North Bovey; almost 30 farms, extensive woodland and fishing rights on the rivers Bovey and Teign. The centre piece of the estate became the Manor House (now Bovey Castle Hotel) built in 1907 by Frederick Smith, the son of W H Smith, Viscount Lord Hambleden. The estimated cost for building it in granite in a lavish neo-Elizabethan style was £100,000. An old farmhouse and adjacent cottages had been demolished, the woods were planted, a lake was made and formal and kitchen gardens laid out.

After it was built, however, the Hambleden family made only occasional visits to the Manor House, spending most of their time in London or at one their other family estates, Greenlands on the Thames at Hambleden in Buckinghamshire or at their Suffolk estate. Only a skeleton staff was kept in the house for the rest of the time. They maintained four gardeners and a few house servants. But they did employ a substantial local work force to maintain the estate, the farms, woodlands, saw mill and other properties.

Locally Viscount Hambleden had a reputation of being a considerate and fair employer and landlord. Lord Hambleden died in June 1928. To pay for a death duty of £1,000,000, the East Dartmoor estate was put on the market to pay the death duty. The sale covered the Manor House, the farms, almost the whole of North Bovey village, considerable stretches of woodland including five miles of woods with fishing rights on the river Teign. The Manor House was eventually sold to the Great Western Railway for conversion to a golfing hotel for reputedly only £15,000. The rest of the estate was sold mainly to the tenants for very modest prices.

COURTENAY / HAMBLEDEN FARMS
FARM	TENANT 1890	TENANT 1928	ACRES
Addiscott	D Wrayford	W.E. White	146
Aller	John Heyward	T Vallance	261
Bearland & E. Coombe	W W Nosworthy	W E & H Nosworthy	249
Blackaller	E J Cuming	W Addems	181
Bowden	A Heyward	H B Woodley	78
Budleigh	S Dolbear	P Triggs	176
Clifford	W Ellis	G H Knapman	166
Deal Manaton	R Hern	Geo Dunning	136
Ellacombe	M G Bowden	M G Bowden	41
Greenawell	A Heyward	F Heyward	204
Hill & Coombe	H Hutton	J Hutton	199
Laapa (Moorgate)	G Hooper	R Osborne	159
Linscott	C Cuming	W R Parr	292
Lowton	G Mortimore	Charles Wills	137
Narramore	E Hooper	E & G Hooper	114
Northmoor	T Hamlyn	S Hill Jnr	221
Pinmoor	D Wrayford	E Wrayford	212
Sanduck	J W Amery	W H Parr	178
Shapley	J Coldridge	S Coldridge	132
Steward	S Elliot	W J & W H Jervis	154
Town Barton Manaton	Ed Cuming	E J Cuming	119
Uppacott	A Nosworthy	A R J Jackman	334
Week	R Heyward	Demolished for Manor House
Willingstone	T Hamlyn	T Hamlyn	223
Wooston	D Wrayford	D G Harvey	352
Wormhill	J J Cuming	R J Cuming	128
Yard	E Cuming	L W Hamlyn	207
Youlden	R Heyward	T H Pollard	172
		TOTAL	4971

Based on the 1890 and 1928 Sale Catalogues (Acreage in 1928) Moreton Archives

(Wooston farm with the Hambleden crest (“Rely on God, not Fortune’) above the doorway. Photo by Peter Collier.)

The farmhouses and farm buildings built or restored by Lord Hambleden for his tenants are still known locally as ‘Hambleden farms’: they have a distinctive architecture of granite blocks, slate roofs and the windows and doorways have red brick surrounds A number of them bear the Hambleden family motto ‘Deo Non Fortuna Fretus’ – ‘Relying on God, not on Fortune’.