Yeotown, Goodleigh

Location

The mansion house was situated in the sequestered wooded valley of the small River Yeo, about 1 mile south-west of the village of Goodleigh. Near to what Gribble (1830) called "Yeotown Lodge" (now Ivy Lodge) on the road from Goodleigh to Barnstaple is situated the stone marker of the eastern boundary of the parish of Barnstaple.

History

The earliest recorded owners of the estate were the Beavis family

Beavis

Henry I Beavis was Mayor of Barnstaple in 1738 and 1751, and his portrait survives in Barnstaple Guildhall. The senior line of the family of Beavis had been from the 16th century lords of the manor of Clyst Satchville, Devon. In 1822 Clist House was the seat of Lord Graves, whose father Lord Graves had purchased it from the executors of "Miss Beavis" (d.1801).

Col. Henry II Beavis, son. On 5 July 1803 he was appointed by the King as Lieutenant-Colonel Commandant (of 441 men) of the Barnstaple Volunteer Infantry (one of several regiments then being raised nationwide to defend against a possible French invasion by Napoleon) and in 1826 was trustee of the Barnstaple charity established by the will of John Phillips (d.1734), whose executor had been the Colonel's father Henry Beavis. In 1810 he was the owner of the large estate of Kentisbury Barton. Col. Beavis had no children of his own and thus adopted a daughter Elizabeth Beavis, who became his sole heiress and the wife of Robert Newton Incledon (1761-1846).

Incledon

Robert Newton Incledon (1761-1846), eldest son of Benjamin Incledon (1730-1796) of Pilton House, Pilton, near Barnstaple, an antiquarian and genealogist and Recorder of the Borough of Barnstaple (1758–1796). In 1797 married Elizabeth Beavis (d.1809), the adopted daughter of Col. Henry Beavis of Yeotown. In 1806 Robert sold Pilton House to James Whyte and in 1807 was resident at Yeotown House, the mansion house on his wife's family estate of Yeotown, which he "new fronted in the Gothic style" to his own design. Robert purchased from the Rashleigh family the manor of Goodleigh, and thus Yeotown became the manor house of Goodleigh. For reason unknown the mansion was demolished during the lifetime of Robert Newton Incledon (d.1845), who died aged 84 at his residence in Ilfracombe. The large ledger stone of Robert and his wife Elizabeth Beavis survives in the south aisle of the chancel of Pilton Church, inscribed as follows:

"In memory of Elizabeth Incledon who died June 4th 1809. And of her husband Robert Newton Incledon Esqr., who died Decr. 24th 1846".

He left two daughters, including Margaret Incledon, the last of the Incledon family, alive in 1890, jointly lords of the manor of Goodleigh in 1850.

Abandonment & demolition

The historian of Barnstaple Joseph Gribble wrote in 1830 concerning the River Yeo: "This stream...forms one of the most prominent objects of attraction from the late splendid but now desolate and forsaken mansion of Yeotown".

Today there survives only one of the large imposing castellated gate house lodges, with two square towers either side of the tall gothic arched entrance way, to which was later added a farmhouse with crenellated gable-end to match with bay-window. It is now a grade II listed building known as Ivy Lodge.