The Grange, Broadhembury

Dunkeswell Abbey

The estate served originally as the grange of nearby Dunkeswell Abbey, the lands of which were sold off by the crown following the Dissolution of the Monasteries. The manor of Broadhembury was amongst these possessions and was acquired from the crown by Thomas Wriothesley, 1st Earl of Southampton (1505-1550), whose grandson sold it to Edward Drew (c.1542–1598).

Drew

Edward Drew (c.1542–1598) of Killerton in the parish of Broadclyst Devon, purchased the manor of Broadhembury including the lands and buildings of the grange of Dunkeswell Abbey.

Locke

Arthur Charles Edward Locke, of Northmoor, eldest son and heir of his mother Adèle Caroline Drewe (d.1895) (Mrs Locke). He sold Grange which thus in 1903 passed from the ownership of the Drewe family and its descendants.

Other

In 1903 Grange was sold and passed from the ownership of the Drewe family. At some time before 1927 the 17th century carved and highly decorative oak panelling of the room in the south crosswing was purchased by the art dealer "Charles of London" (Charles Duveen, younger brother of Joseph Duveen) and was shipped to its New York showroom where it was purchased by the tycoon William Randolph Hearst (1863-1951) who placed it in warehouse storage together with many other such purchases. Reference to these warehouses is made in the famous 1941 film Citizen Kane:

"Contents of Kane's palace: paintings, pictures, statues, the very stones of many another palace, shipped to Florida from every corner of the earth, from other Kane houses, warehouses, where they mouldered for years. Enough for ten museums - the loot of the world."

In 1943/4 it was purchased by Dr Preston Pope Satterwhite of Louisville, Kentucky (a friend of Mrs J.B. Speed) who donated it to the Speed Art Museum in Louisville, Kentucky, USA. In 1943 it was reassembled in the museum as a slightly longer room, called "The English Renaissance Room", but reopened in March 2016 after substantial refurbishment in its original proportions.

Allsopp

In 2009 The Grange was owned by the television personality and property consultant Kirstie Allsopp (born 1971), the daughter of Charles Allsopp, 6th Baron Hindlip, a former chairman of Christie's auctioneers.