Name and Place Index

To

Schedule of Deeds in the Possession of the Cary Trustees at Tor Abbey

In:

Tenth Report of the Committee on Devonshire Records.

Trans. Devon Assoc., vol. XXXIII, (1901), pp. 151-186.

by

J.T. White

Prepared by Michael Steer

The report was submitted at the Association’s July 1901 Exeter meeting. The section on the MSS Collection is an extract from it. The deeds recorded in the Committee’s report provide over 800 surnames of those living or having property in Devon between 1239 and 1645. The deeds vary in type from property conveyances through leases of buildings and land, individual Wills and pedigrees. Torre Abbey was founded in 1196 as a monastery for Premonstratensian canons. It is now the best-preserved medieval monastery in Devon and Cornwall. By 1536 the Abbey's annual income made it the wealthiest of all the Premonstratensian houses in England. The canons surrendered to King Henry's VIII's commissioner in 1539 at the Dissolution of the Monasteries, and in 1539 a 21-year lease of the site and demesne was acquired by Sir Hugh Pollard. The house became the possession of the Cary family in 1662 and continued in the possession of the Cary’s until 1930 when the mansion and grounds were sold to the Torquay Borough Council, although the family continued to own the surrounding estate and the (notional) lordship of the manor of Tor Mohun. The report is from a copy of a rare and much sought-after journal that can be downloaded from the Internet Archive. Google has sponsored the digitisation of books from several libraries. These books, on which copyright has expired, are available for free educational and research use, both as individual books and as full collections to aid researchers.