Clovelly family joint purchasers

The 15th-century Manor House of Weare Giffard Hall with 3½ acres of land and half a mile of fishing in the River Torridge was sold by public auction on Friday for £11,300.

Joint purchasers were Miss E Mullins, of Ealing, London, and Mr and Mrs Maurice Dickinson, of the Post Office, High Street, Clovelly. Miss Mullins is Mrs Dickinson’s aunt. Mr Dickinson, now in his seventh year as sub-postmaster at Clovelly, is a New Zealander who previously served nine years in the Army. He said after the auction that they had no plans to make the Hall into anything but a family home. He would be commuting between there and Clovelly, and had previously done the same when they lived in Bideford at Glenburnie. Asked about the ghost of 13th century Knight which is reputed to walk at midnight from the Hall to the nearby Parish Church, Mr Dickinson said ‘I am very keen to meet the ghost’.

Weare Giffard Hall, scheduled as being of special historic interest, was built on the site of an old Saxon manor house in about the middle of the 15th century. It is typically Elizabethan in design and is linked principally with the Fortescue family. Other families who have known the Hall include the Courtenays and the Chichesters. The Great Hall is the showpiece of the building, its 15th century hammer-beam roof being smaller but similar to those in Westminster Hall and Hampton Court. At some time after the Civili War the Hall fell into a state of neglect, and for some time it was used as a farm house with the Great Hall as a potato store, until restoration work was carried out by the Hon George Fortescue.

Weare Giffard Hall was one of eight properties and parcels of land offered for sale by public auction at Durrant House Hotel, Northam, by Messrs John Lewington and Company, of Bideford. Another lot, three building sites at Nilgala, Raleigh, Bideford, was sold prior to auction. Sold for £2,050 was 3.47 acres of building land at Weare Giffard with about half a mile of fishing . Purchaser was Mr S J Davey, of Leek, Staffs. Solicitors in the sale of the Hall and the above-mentioned land were Messrs Seldon, Ward and Nuttall, Bideford. Other properties were unsold at auction. A corner shop property, No 12 Meddon Street, Bideford, was withdrawn at £1,500; business premises with living accommodation, No 15-15a Fore Street, Northam, withdrawn at £2,000; corner site property known as Court, The Square, Sheepwash, withdrawn at £1,000; shop and living accommodation at Nos 2, 3 and 4, The Quay, Bideford, withdrawn at £6,000; commercial premises known as Farmer’s Wharf, Barnstaple Street, Bideford, no bid; 4.30 acres of pasture land near Halfpenny Bridge, Weare Giffard, with some fishing rights withdrawn at £250.

Gazette article dated 3 March 1967