Buckland Monachorum

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"BUCKLAND-MONACHORUM, a parish in the hundred of Roborough, in the county of Devon, 4 miles to the S. of Tavistock. It is situated on the banks of the river Tavy, not far from the Horrabridge station, on the Tavistock branch of the South Devon railway. It was anciently a market town, and became noted as the site of an abbey for monks of the Cistercian order, founded about 1278 by Amicia de Rivers, Countess Dowager of Devonshire. This monastery, which was afterwards fortified, flourished till the Dissolution, when it had a revenue of £242. The first orchards in the county are said to have been planted by the monks of Buckland. In the reign of Elizabeth, the estate was purchased by Sir Francis Drake, in whose family it still remains. Some of the houses in the village are very ancient. The living is a vicarage* in the diocese of Exeter, of the value of £430, in the patronage of the Rev. R. Hayne, D.D. The church, dedicated to the Holy Trinity, was built about the year 1400. It is in the form of a cross, and has a tower surmounted by eight-sided turrets and pinnacles. The church contains a fine monument, by Bacon, to Lord Heathfield, who defended Gibraltar, and several monuments to the Drake family. The charitable endowments, consisting partly of bequests for education, by Lady Modyford and Matthew Elford, and £600 for the benefit of the poor, by Sir Ralph Lopes, Bart., amount to about £43 a year. Buckland Abbey, an Elizabethan mansion, pleasantly situated in wooded grounds by the Tavy, is the seat of Sir T. T. F. Drake. In the mansion are preserved a portrait of the great naval hero, and several personal relics. Some remains of the ancient abbey still exist in the grounds. There are several pleasant seats in the neighbourhood."