BBC experts investigate hidden Devon manor house

Excavation work at Columbjohn Manor
-Credit:Reach Publishing Services Limited


BBC historians have delved deep into a Devon estate where the National Trust is searching for a long lost manor house. The remains of Columbjohn, a mansion at the heart of the Killerton estate near Exeter, were showcased on BBC Two programme Digging For Britain this week.

The site is thought to have played an important role in the English Civil War, in which the Columbjohn owners, the Acland family, chose to support King Charles. Excavations turned up lead musket balls, believed to have been stored at the house during that era. BBC's Digging for Britain visited the manor in the final episode of the most recent series.

Civil War expert Mark Stoyle told historian Yasmin Khan that Devon sided with Oliver Cromwell's roundheads pretty strongly during the war, which made the Acland's decision risky. "Eventually a Cornish royalist army invades Devon," he explains, "and at that moment, he rises up and rides out to join them, hoping that they are going to take over the whole county. Eventually they do. But elsewhere, King Charles I fortunes are not faring very well."

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Excavation work on what is thought to be Columbjohn Manor
Excavation work on what is thought to be Columbjohn Manor

As Parliamentarian forces move "like a juggernaught" towards Exeter, the Aclunds - just seven miles outside the city - were left vulnerable and Cromwell overtook Columbjohn for the Roundheads HQ. The was used by Thomas Fairfax as a headquarters during the Siege of Exeter. A letter between Elizabeth Aclund and Oliver Cromwell indicated that the leader of the Parliamentarians stayed there during the war.

Dr Susan Greaney, Project Lead in the Department of Archaeology and History at the University of Exeter said: "The substantive parts of Columbjohn are likely to date from 1580–90, when Sir John Acland is known to have purchased the manor and built a large Elizabethan mansion on the site.

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"However, the only standing remains today are an outer gatehouse and some nearby farm buildings. After the family relocated to the main house at Killerton, and the manor was demolished in the early Victorian period, the location and layout of the house were entirely forgotten."

A cobbled courtyard, two ranges of buildings, parts of a demolished outer precinct wall and a probable sunken garden are among the structures that have been found. There are also a number of historical artefacts that have been discovered, including musket balls, 17th century coins, the twisted stem of a drinking glass, a pipe tamper ring, a double-sided bone comb and a large key, located in one of the drains.