Pawton Palace (The Gatehouse Record)

In the civil parish of St Breock.
In the historic county of Cornwall.
Modern Authority of Cornwall.
1974 county of Cornwall.
Medieval County of Cornwall.

OS Map Grid Reference: SW95947012
Latitude 50.49521° Longitude -4.87848°

Pawton Palace has been described as a probable Palace.

There are masonry ruins/remnants remains.

This is a Grade 2 listed building protected by law*.

Description

Medieval manor house, chapel and deer park owned by the Bishops of Exeter. The deer park was enclosed circa 1258. The buildings are now used as a farm and include an early C17 tithe barn. (PastScape)

At Pawton the Bishops of Exeter had a manor house, chapel and park during the Middle Ages. It is now a large farm. "There are two large barns which contain ancient masonry. One of these was probably the tithe barn and the other may have been the chapel - it lies East and West, and there are remains of a spiral stone staircase in a square newel projecting from the South wall. A field on the North of the farm called the 'Graveyard'..has never yet been ploughed. There being no carved stone fragments it is very difficult to determine the date of the buildings....... the deer park fields remain" (Henderson, 1953). "...very little of the Old Manor House remains but the old mediaeval tithe barn can still be seen." (Garland). The double walls and fences of the deer park are still extant on the Barton. Pawton deer park was enclosed c 1258. (Henderson, 1963) The tithe barn at SW 95887006 is in good condition though not outstanding. It incorporates the stone staircase leading to an upper floor. There is no separate barn which can be identified as a chapel (this would probably have been incorporated within the manor house). The extent of the deer park cannot be deduced from the present hedges and the field called the 'Graveyard' is not known to the present owners. The farmhouse is modern (Field Investigators Comments–F1 NVQ 27-FEB-72). (PastScape)

Sources of information, references and further reading

National Heritage List for England Listed Building number(s) 1159526
Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s) 430949.
County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) 26163.

Books
- Emery, Anthony, 2006, Greater Medieval Houses of England and Wales Vol. 3 Southern England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) p. 549-51
  Thompson, M.W., 1998, Medieval bishops' houses in England and Wales (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing) p. 177
  Longden, Preb. A,, 1968, Church and Parish of St Breoke with additions by Francis Hodges
  Henderson, Charles (edited by Rowse, A.L. and Henderson, M.I.), 1963 (original written 1935), Essays in Cornish history (Clarendon Press) p. 157
  Elliott-Binns, L.E., 1955, Medieval Cornwall p. 302-5
  Lake, J., 1872 (reprinted 1974), Parochial History of the County of Cornwall
Periodical Articles
- Reed, J., 1971, ' 'Parochial Check-Lists of Antiquities' Cornish Archaeology Hendhyscans Kernow Vol. 10 p. 107 online copy
  Garland, M., 1961-67, 'St Breock Parish' Old Cornwall Vol. 6 p. 454
  Henderson, C., 1953-6, 'Ecclesiastical History' Journal of the Royal Institution of Cornwall Vol. 2 p. 41-3
Other sources: Theses; 'grey' literature; in-house reports; unpublished works; etc.
- Payne, Naomi, 2003, The medieval residences of the bishops of Bath and Wells, and Salisbury (PhD Thesis University of Bristol) Appendix B: List of Medieval Bishop's Palaces in England and Wales (available via EThOS)

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The information on this web page may be derived from information compiled by and/or copyright of Historic England, County Historic Environment Records and other individuals and organisations. It may also contain information licensed under the Open Government Licence. All the sources given should be consulted to identify the original copyright holder and permission obtained from them before use of the information on this site for commercial purposes.
The author and compiler of Gatehouse does not receive any income from the site and funds it himself. The information within this site is provided freely for educational purposes only.

The bibliography owes much to various bibliographies produced by John Kenyon for the Council for British Archaeology, the Castle Studies Group and others.

Suggestions for finding online and/or hard copies of bibliographical sources can be seen at this link.
Minor archaeological investigations, such as watching brief reports, and some other 'grey' literature is most likely to be held by H.E.R.s but is often poorly referenced and is unlikely to be recorded here, or elsewhere, but some suggestions can be found here.

The possible site or monument is represented on maps as a point location. This is a guide only. It should be noted that OS grid references defines an area, not a point location. In practice this means the actual center of the site or monument may often, but not always, be to the North East of the point shown. Locations derived from OS grid references and from latitude longitiude may differ by a small distance.
Further information on mapping and location can be seen at this link.

Please help to make this as useful a resource as possible by contacting Gatehouse if you see errors, can add information or have suggestions for improvements in functality and design.
Help is acknowledged.

*The listed building may not be the actual medieval building, but a building on the site of, or incorporating fragments of, the described site.

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