Edge, Branscombe


Edge,, is an ancient and historic house in the parish of Branscombe, Devon, England and is today known as Edge Barton Manor. The surviving house is grade II* listed and sits on the steep, south-facing side of a wooded valley, or combe. The building was not in origin a manor house, but was one of the first stone-built houses in "Branescombe", on a villein holding called La Regge. It is one of the oldest continuously inhabited houses in England, and is constructed from the local Beer stone

Description

The existing building is U-shaped and may originally have been built around a courtyard. Only a short section of the original dry moat survives. An early circular stone staircase tower is contained within the angle of the north wing to give access to a second floor that was created by the addition of a raised ceiling to the great hall. The stone of an upstairs window shows ancient, graffiti-incised drawings of sailing ships that are thought to represent those of the Spanish Armada that was becalmed offshore near Branscombe in 1588.

Chapel

A chapel attached to the house dates from the end of the thirteenth or early fourteenth century. Much of the rest of the house's architecture is from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
The chapel, thought to have been built by Walter Branscombe, Bishop of Exeter from 1258 to 1280, occupied the present south wing, where a large rose window containing four cusped trefoils originally set within the outer gable of the west wall survives on what is now an internal wall, hidden behind a later chimney stack in the attic. In 1822, Samuel Lysons described the chapel as being in a poor state of repair and desecrated. An ancient stone piscina has also survived; this was reset into a wall in the hall.

Descent of the manor

Wadham

Historically, the manor of Branscombe belonged to the See of Exeter, but during the reign of King Edward III the estate of Edge was acquired by the de Wadham family who took their name from the manor of Wadham, Knowstone in north Devon and held Edge for eight generations, eventually moving their principal residence to Merryfield, Ilton in Somerset around 1400, after which point Edge seems to have been used as the family’s dower house.
In 1618 on the death of Dorothy Petre, widow of Nicholas Wadham, Edge and his other possessions passed to the descendants of his three sisters:
Following the death of Dorothy Wadham in 1618, Edge passed into the families of the sisters and co-heiresses of Nicholas Wadham; namely, the Martyns of Athelhampton, Dorset, the Wyndhams of Orchard Wyndham, Somerset, later Earls of Egremont at Petworth House in Sussex, and the Strangways of Melbury House, Dorset, later, as Fox-Strangways, Earls of Ilchester, who retained co-ownership until 1933 and in the interval let Edge to a series of tenant farmers.

Tenants

Edge was at one point occupied as tenants by the Langdons, of Chard in Somerset, and was described in the eighteenth century as "derelict in appearance".
Early in the twentieth century it was tenanted by a Mr. Richards, of Sidmouth, who was born in Branscombe.

Masters

Edge was purchased in 1933 by Captain Frank Masters, an architect. The house was in a decayed state and with the former chapel being used as a dairy. He began extensive renovations in 1935, but did not live to complete the work.

Blackburn

The renovations begun by Captain Masters were completed by Robert Blackburn, an aeronautical engineer.

de Savary

owned the property for a short time and sought to run it as an activity centre for "25-30 boys from overseas".

Leese

Leese did extensive modernisation and decorations.

Neuman

The Neuman family lived at Edge, and built the current conservatory for which there was placed a 15th century French gargoyle. The family did extensive landscape work to the gardens, restoration to the reception room on the ground floor and re-thatched the barn.

Robinson

In 1996, Edge was acquired by retired businessman Michael Silvanus Robinson CBE and his wife June,, a former Conservative mayor of the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames.
The Robinsons established a link with Wadham College and in June 2010, to mark the 400th anniversary of the college's founding they entertained Sir Neil Chalmers, Warden of Wadham College and a number of the Fellows at Edge.

Gallery