Pollard baronets


The Pollard Baronetcy, of King's Nympton in the County of Devon, was a title in the Baronetage of England. It was created on 31 May 1627 for Lewis Pollard. The second Baronet sat as Member of Parliament for Bere Alston, Callington and Devon. The title became extinct on the death of the third Baronet in 1701.

Origins

The Pollard family was earlier established at the manor of Way, two miles SE of St Giles in the Wood, in which parish it is situated. It is now represented by the farmhouse known as Way Barton. Reset into the front wall of the house are the stone heads c. 1300 of two ladies wearing wimples and the smaller head of a man. A monumental brass exists in St Giles Church of Eleanor Pollard, of which only the lower half of a female figure has survived, with the inscription: Hic jacet Alyanora Pollard qui fuit uxor Johannis Pollard et fila Johannis Coplestone qui obiit 21.o die mensis Septembris Anno domini Millensimo MMMMXXX cuius animae propitietur Deus Amen. John de Coplestone was of Colebroke, Devon and married Katherine de Graas, by whom he had Eleanor. There are two further inscriptions on the same slab made at later times to commemorate later family members. The manor of Way passed later by marriage to the family of Risdon, and was the birthplace of the antiquarian Tristram Risdon. The family of Pollard was also established at Horwood, on the site of the present farmhouse known as East Barton. In the Church of St Michael in Horwood is an alabaster effigy of a lady, c. 1450, believed to represent Elizabeth Pollard. The Pollard Baronets were descended from Sir Lewis Pollard, Justice of the Common Pleas, who purchased the manor of King's Nympton.

Pollard baronets, of King's Nympton (1627)