Cross, Little Torrington

Cross House, Little Torrington

Cross House, Little Torrington, viewed from across the valley of the River Torridge on Castle Hill, Great Torrington

Cross is an historic estate in the parish and former manor of Little Torrington, Devon. The Georgian red-brick mansion house at Cross, re-built between 1744 and 1748 and classified as Grade II* listed in 1960,^[1] is a conspicuous sight from Castle Hill, Great Torrington, across the River Torridge valley. Cross House is especially notable as containing an ornate staircase salvaged in about 1720 from the demolished Stowe House, Kilkhampton in Cornwall, built circa 1680-5.^[2]

Descent

Welsh

In the early 18th century the estate of Cross was owned by Anthony Welsh, whose daughter Grace Welsh (1689–1770) married Joseph Coplestone (1667–1746), of Woodland, Little Torrington in 1713 at the Church in Little Torrington.^[3]

Coplestone

The Coplestone family of Woodland was founded by Richard Coplestone, living in 1550, the third son of John Coplestone (1475–1550) of Copleston in the parish of Colebrooke, Devon.^[4] One of the younger sons of Joseph Coplestone (1667–1746) by his wife Grace Welsh (1689–1770) was John Coplestone (1727–1801), Mayor of Great Torrington in 1760.^[5] Joseph Coplestone's eldest son and heir, Joseph Coplestone (1718–1759), of Woodland, sold Woodland to Henry Stevens^[6] (1689–1748), who re-built Cross House.^[7]

Stevens

Christiana Maria Rolle (1710-1780), wife of Henry Stevens (1689-1748) of Cross and Smythacott. Portrait by Thomas Hudson, Great Torrington townhall

Henry Stevens (1689-1748), described in his will as "of Smithcott" in the parish of Frithelstock, but who built the existing mansion of Cross between 1744 and 1748,^[8] married Christiana Maria Rolle (1710-1780), a daughter of John Rolle (1679-1730), MP, of Stevenstone, in the nearby parish of St Giles in the Wood, and sister of Henry Rolle, 1st Baron Rolle (1708-1750). Portraits of Christiana and of her brothers John Rolle Walter (1712-1779), and Denys Rolle (d.1797), successively owners of the Stevenstone estates, were painted by Thomas Hudson and were given in the early 1900s by Lord Clinton to the Great Torrington Town Lands and Poors Charity. They are on public display in Great Torrington townhall.

No entry for the Stevens family exists in the 1620 Heraldic Visitation of Devon, and thus the family's pedigree is not officially recorded, and the family must be assumed not to have been counted amongst the gentry of Devon at that time, or to have settled in the county after that date. The same arms as used by the Devon family were however recorded as adopted in 1606 by a Gloucestershire family called "Stephens",^[9] of Chavenage House, Eastington, which family rose to considerable prominence during the Civil War as Parliamentarians. William Stevens (d.1648) of Great Torrington, was thus apparently a younger son of the Stevens family of Chavenage House.^[10] The earliest known seat of the Stevens family in Devon was Vielstone, now a farmhouse in 2013 used as a care home, in the parish of Buckland Brewer( of which the Rolle family of Stevenstone were lords of the manor) about five miles south-west of Great Torrington, as is recorded on the ornate mural monument to Judith Stevens (d.1676), daughter of John Hancock of Combe Martin, and wife of Henry Stevens de Velstone, son and heir of William Stevens of Great Torrington, on the east wall of the south aisle of Great Torrington parish church. Clearly the Stevens family were even then of some high standing in view of the prominent positioning of the monument in this large and important church. One of their sons, John Stevens (d.1674) predeceased his father, as is revealed by his grave-slab under his father's mural monument in Great Torrington Church. Henry appears to have had two sisters, both listed passim in the Visitation of Devon as "daughter of William Stevens of Great Torrington":

• Susannah Stevens (d.1694/5), who married firstly Alexander Rolle (d.1660) of Tawstock, a younger son of a junior line of the Rolles of Stevenstone. She married secondly in 1664, as his third wife, Sir John Chichester (1598-1669) of Hall, in the parish of Bishops Tawton, and had issue from both marriages.^[11]
• Mary Stevens (d.1669), buried at St Giles in the Wood, married in 1639 Henry Rolle of Beam (1605-1647), near Great Torrington, who in 1642 inherited from his infant cousin Denys Rolle (1638-1642) the Stevenstone estates. The marriage was childless and his heir was his cousin Sir John Rolle (d.1706), KB.^[12]

Henry and Judith's two grandsons, the sons of Richard Stevens and Elizabeth his wife, appear to have been Henry Stevens (1689-1748) of Cross, in the parish of Little Torrington and Richard Stevens (1702-1776), MP, of Winscott.

Richard Stevens (d.1776) was MP for the Rolle pocket borough of Callington in Cornwall between 1761 and 1768. His mural monument exists in Peters Marland Church. He married Elizabeth (1707-1760), of unknown family, by whom he had three sons who pre-deceased him without progeny and two daughters who were also without progeny. His daughter Elizabeth Stevens (1727-1792) married firstly Robert Awse of Horwood House in the parish of Frithelstock, and secondly John Cleveland (1734-1817), MP, of Tapeley near Bideford. Winscott passed after Cleveland's death to the descendants of Richard's elder brother, Henry Stevens (d.1748), of Cross, thus re-uniting the three Stevens estates.

Henry I Stevens's heir was his son Henry II Stevens (1739-1802), who married Sarah Bridget Marwood (who married secondly John Inglett Fortescue of Buckland Filleigh), but who died without progeny leaving as heir his sister Christiana Stevens (1743-1828) who had married in 1779 Rev. Thomas Moore (1740-1802), vicar of Bishops Tawton.

Moore-Stevens

Heraldic tiles dated 1865 on floor of chancel, St Peter's Church, one of four similar groups of four, with legend Pro patria et Fide (For country and faith). The arms of Stevens in the 1st and 4th quarters seem to show in the chief inverted tinctures. The arms in the 2nd and 3rd quarters are of Moore

As indicated by the Moore arms shown on the chancel floor of Peters Marland Church (1865), Thomas Moore (1740-1802) was of the Moore family, Earls of Mount Cashell, of Cashel, County Tipperary, Ireland, and Barons Kilworth, of Moore Park, Kilworth, County Cork. He may have been the brother of Rev. George Moore (d.1807), Canon Residentiary of Exeter, Archdeacon of Cornwall and vicar of Heavitree.^[13] Christiana Stevens was also the heir of her cousin Elizabeth Cleveland (née Stevens) (1727-1792), the only surviving child and daughter of Richard Stevens (d.1776) of Winscott. Their eldest son was Thomas Moore-Stevens (1782-1832), of Vielston, Buckland Brewer, later of Cross. He succeeded to Cross and other property under an entail, and to Winscott under the will of Elizabeth Clevland,^[14] daughter and heir of Richard Stevens of Winscott. He adopted the name and arms of Stevens, by royal licence dated 12 July 1817, on the death of John Clevland (1734-1817), 2nd husband of Elizabeth Stevens, as a condition of her will.^[15] He was of Winscott, BA Balliol College, Oxford, 1803, a barrister of the Middle Temple, and Recorder of Exeter, as recorded on his mural monument in Little Torrington Church.^[16] He married in 1821 Sophia Le Marchant (1798-1860),^[17] younger daughter of Rev. Joshua Le Marchant of Guernsey,^[18] and had two daughters, Sophia and Louisa, who married Frederick Haworth of Kensington, Middlesex. Sophia Stevens's diaries between the years 1817-1836 are held at the North Devon Record Office in Barnstaple (ref:A 251), but a large gap exists around the time of her husband's death.^[19] He was the presumptive heir and next-of-kin to John Rolle, 1st Baron Rolle (d.1842), (of the second creation of that title)^[20] his mother Christiana Stevens (d.1828) having been first cousin of John, Lord Rolle, who had only sisters and no children of his own. Lord Rolle however disposed of his property elsewhere under his will. Thomas Stevens died by suicide, as is recorded in the death notices in the 1832 Annual Register:^[21]

"14 Jan. At his seat, Cross, near Torrington, Thomas Stevens, Esq. recorder of Exeter, Barnstaple, and Torrington, and a major in the North Devon regiment of Yeomanry cavalry. Educated for the bar, he early displayed talents of a superior order, and in 1826 he was elected by the chamber of Exeter to fill the honourable and responsible office of recorder of that city. On Monday, January 9, Mr. Stevens sat in the court of quarter sessions in Barnstaple; and on Tuesday, at the quarter sessions in South Molton; and, on each of those days, he complained of indisposition in his head. A tumultuous assemblage of people at Torrington on the following days, called forth his active exertions both as a magistrate and an officer, and probably increased the excitement which disease had previously begotten in his mind. On Friday evening he wrote a letter to a gentleman, which bore strong indications of great mental agitation. In this perturbed state he retired to his room on the evening of Friday. In the morning (...) was heard from the dressing room, which induced Mrs. Stevens to hasten thither; and, on entering she caught her husband in her arms, deluged in blood flowing in torrents from a wound inflicted in his throat, which caused his death within a very short period".

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