West Ogwell
| West Ogwell | |
| Devon | |
|---|---|
 The old parish church, West Ogwell | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | SX823700 |
| Location: | 50°31’6"N, 3°39’41"W |
| Data | |
| Postcode: | TQ12 |
| Local Government | |
| Council: | Teignbridge |
| Parliamentary constituency: |
Teignbridge |
West Ogwell is a village in southern Devon, two miles south-west of the town of Newton Abbot and a mile west of the village of East Ogwell. The church and manor house "lie hidden away on their own".[1]
Church
The disused former parish church stands next to the manor house. It was built in the 13th-century and since 1982 it has been owned by the Redundant Churches Fund.[1]
The church is a Grade I listed building and in the opinion of Nikolaus Pevsner it is of exceptional interest "both for its early structure undisturbed by the usual Perp(endicular) remodelling and because its simple and charming late Georgian interior has escaped radical Victorian restoration". [1] Richard Polwhele (1793) wrote of West Ogwell Church: "West Ogwell is a very small parish containing no more than thirty-five inhabitants...West Ogwell Church is dark and damp".[2]
Manor House
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West Ogwell House, now known as 'Gaia House', is the former manor house of West Ogwell, and stands next to the church. It is a Georgian structure built in 1790 by Pierce Joseph Taylor.[1] In Pevsner's opinion, it has an "overwhelmingly plain exterior (with) no decoration whatever".[3] It incorporates some remains from the former manor house of the Reynell family (whose earliest Devonshire seat was at adjoining East Ogwell),[4] including stables and outbuildings built in 1588 by Thomas Reynell,[1] as the surviving datestone in the wall of the lean-to building in the courtyard attests by its inscription Anno Domini 1588 T. R..[5]
In 1943 the house became the Convent of the Companions of Jesus the Good Shepherd (founded 1920), and a chapel was added in 1955.[1] In 1996 the Convent moved to Windsor and joined with the Community of St John Baptist. In 2001 though the Convent moved to Begbroke Priory in Oxfordshire and sold West Ogwell to the Gaia House Trust. The Trust renamed the house as 'Gaia House' and opened it as a Buddhist centre for "retreat for meditation and contemplation".[5]
History of the manor
The manor was anciently called 'West Woggewill'.[6]
During the reign of King Henry II (1154-1189) West Ogwell was held by Hugh Peytevin (alias Peitevyn, etc), who held it together with other lands by knight's service.[7] West Ogwell was subsequently a possession of the Courtenays, Earls of Devon[7]</ref> of Tiverton Castle.
West Ogwell was purchased from the Courtenays by the Reynell family,[7] then seated at the adjoining manor of East Ogwell, who held it until their heiress married Joseph Taylor in 1726, after which the manor descended in the Taylor family
In about 1750, Thomas Taylor began to rebuild the manor house,[5] as recorded by Polwhele (1793):
Three parts of this parish at present are the property of Mr Taylor who built a large house here about forty years ago but left it unfinished. It stands near the church and is occupied by Farmer Howard, who rents the estate and whose family are more than half the parisioners."[8]
His son, Pierce Joseph Taylor, in 1790 completed the rebuilding of West Ogwell House and abandoned the manor house of East Ogwell.[9] Polwhele wrote of East Ogwell Church:
Close adjoining to the church are the ivy-grown ruins of the mansion house of the Reynells, inhabited at present by large flocks of pigeons".[8]
In 1869 West Ogwell was purchased by Daniel Robert Scratton (1819-1902). He was a noted breeder of cattle and of pointer dogs. In 1890 the estate of West Ogwell comprised almost 700 acres with a deer park.[5] His obituary states:[10]
He made the place famous in the agricultural world, devoting to the farm he established there such personal care as if he had to make his living out of the land. He recognized to the full the duties and claims attaching to the possession of property. He built schools, founded a cottage hospital, gave at considerable cost a water-supply to Ogwell, lighted his parish church with acetylene gas, and also provided it with an organ, and when someone was wanted to blow it he undertook the work, saying, as he could not sing, he wanted to do something. He was a busy, active man, fond of work for its own sake. He had tried every kind of sport, he used to say but had found nothing so satisfying as work. He was Chairman of the Newton Abbot Board of Guardians for some time, Secretary of the Hospital at Newton Abbot, Honorary Clerk to the School Boards of Denbury and Ogwell, and Clerk to the Parish Councils of the same places.
On Daniel Scratton's death his death in 1902, West Ogwell House passed to his cousin Edward Joshua Blackburn Scratton (1854-1916), a lawyer, who sold it to the farmer resident next door at West Ogwell Barton, who used the manor house as a store for his farm produce.
Outside links
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("Wikimedia Commons" has material about West Ogwell) |
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 Nikolaus Pevsner: The Buildings of England: Devon, 1952; 1989 Penguin Books ISBN 978-0-300-09596-8page 901-2
- ↑ Polwhele, Richard: 'History of Devonshire' (1793) p.133
- ↑ Pevsner, p.902
- ↑ Vivian, Lt.Col. J.L. (Ed.): 'The Visitations of the County of Devon: Comprising the Heralds' Visitations of 1531, 1564 & 1620, Exeter, 1895'
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Gaia House: History
- ↑ Pole, p.250
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Pole, Sir William (d.1635): 'Collections Towards a Description of the County of Devon' (1791 edition; p.250-1)
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Polwhele, Richard: 'History of Devonshire' (1793) p.133
- ↑ Burke, 1838, p.448, note
- ↑ Obituary Notice - Daniel Robert Scratton: Transactions of the Devonshire Association, Vol.34, 1902, p. 36 [1]