Great Bidlake Manor
 | This article, Great Bidlake Manor, has recently been created via the Articles for creation process. Please check to see if the reviewer has accidentally left this template after accepting the draft and take appropriate action as necessary.
Reviewer tools: Inform author |
Great Bidlake is the ancestral home of the Bidlake family[1]. It is located in in the parish of Bridestowe on the north western edge of Dartmoor in the United Kingdom.
The house is Grade II* listed and is predominately Elizabethan [2].
It was known as "Wester Bidlake" or simply "Bidlake" until Rev. John Henry Bidlake Wollocombe (who owned the estate between 1903 and his death in 1931) decided to call the house "Great Bidlake" and a smaller house nearby had its name changed from "Easter Bidlake" to "Little Bidlake".
A deed dated 1268 marks the purchase of the Bidlake lands by Ralph de Combe from Warrine of Sicaville[3]. After this his descendants took the name "Bidlake" which has been spelled many different ways over the centuries (Bydelacke,Bydlayke, Byddelake, Bidlocke, Bydlak, Bydelake, and Bedlacke). A reference to Bydelak appears in a document in 1238[4].
Christopher Bidlake (1661-1740) is the progenitor of the Bidlake/Bidlack family in America. He sailed to Ipswich, Massachusetts before 1692[5].
Bidlake Mill, once part of the Bidlake estate, is also mentioned in the original deed of 1268 and is an ancient monument[2].
In the First World War, the farm at Great Bidlake was farmed entirely by women, a radical and controversial idea[6]. Marlborough House School relocated from Kent to Great Bidlake between 1940 to 1945. In the large threshing barn on the estate the pupils created a mural of Noah's Ark that is still there to this day[7].
Frederick Thomas Bidlake, one of the most notable administrators of British road bicycle racing during the early 20th century and in whose memory the annual Bidlake Memorial Prize was instituted, was due to retire to Great Bidlake in 1933 but was involved in a collision with a car while riding down Barnett Hill north of London and died 3 weeks later [8]
The Bidlake family crest is a "a cock holding in the beak a trefoil, all proper" and the family motto is "Virtue non astutio" (By excellence, not by cunning) [9]
A collection of documents relating to Great Bidlake and the Bidlake family are held in the Devon Record Office[10]
References
- ^ Jamie Dunbar. "Great Bidlake House, Bridestowe - Dartmoor Trust Archive". dartmoortrust.org.
- ^ a b Good Stuff. "Listed Buildings Online - British Listed Buildings". britishlistedbuildings.co.uk.
- ^ Wollocombe, J.H.B The Bidlakes of Bidlake. Devon & Cornwall Notes & Queries 3:8 (1905)
- ^ The Place Names of Devon by Grover, Mawler and Stenton, Part I, Cambridge Univerity Press, 1932, page 177
- ^ American Genealogical-Biographical Index, Vol. 13, page 393
- ^ "BBC - World War One At Home, Great Bidlake Farm, Bridestowe: The Farm Run by Women". BBC.
- ^ http://www.marlboroughhouseschool.co.uk/_files/53DD5A30881A5F0548694CCB8F5115B0.pdf
- ^ "The F T Bidlake Memorial Trust". bidlakememorial.org.uk.
- ^ Fairborn's Book of Crests of the Families of Great Britain and Ireland
- ^ "Devon Archives and Local Studies Service". devon.gov.uk.
| This article, Great Bidlake Manor, has recently been created via the Articles for creation process. Please check to see if the reviewer has accidentally left this template after accepting the draft and take appropriate action as necessary.
Reviewer tools: Inform author |