Buckland Abbey

Cistercian abbey, founded 1278.
At the Dissolution Sir Richard Grenville was granted the ’farm of the site with orchards, gardens, meadows etc.’ Sir Francis Drake bought the property in 1581 and it remained in his family until 1946.  Now National Trust. Drake hired a gardener to prune the fruit trees and cider was regularly produced. The fruit trees were sufficiently well known for William Marshall to note in 1769 that ’One of the orchards of Buckland Priory is said to be the oldest in the country, and this is spoken of as being about two hundred years old. Nevertheless, this orchard is still fully stocked and in full bearing.’ White (1850) noted that it was ‘a neat mansion, with tasteful grounds.’ Specimen trees include two magnolias, a Western Himalayan, Himalayan Pine, Mahonia lomariifolia, Actinidia kolomikta and Eucryphia.  A flight of steps leads to a herb garden in box-edged beds. The general effect is of a noble building in its setting of sloping lawns, surrounded by a rich assembly of exotic shrubs and woodland.  Access to the public during the summer season.  

Cherry & Pevsner, The Buildings of England – Devon (1989), pp. 227-9.
S Pugsley, Devon Gardens – An Historical Survey (1994), pp. 2, 32, 33.
T Gray, The Garden History of Devon (1995), pp. 59-60.
S and N Buck, Buck’s Antiquities v.1, (1774), pl. 60.
Gardener’s Magazine v .18, (1842), pp. 550-51.

Garden, v. 44, pp. 431-32.
G S Thomas, Gardens of the National Trust (1979), pp. 109-10.
T Gray, Devon Country Houses and Gardens Engraved, Vol I, (2001), pp. 53-9. 

Abbey and the tithe barn listed Grade I.  Infirmary, Tower and adjoining outbuildings listed Grade II*. Gate piers and adjoining wall, garden retaining wall, cider house, kitchen garden wall, linhay, calf pens, cart shed listed Grade II.  Buckland Abbey merits adding to the Historic England Register at Grade II.

Cistercian abbey, founded 1278. At the Dissolution Sir Richard Grenville was granted the ’farm of the site with orchards, gardens, meadows etc.’ Sir Francis Drake bought the property in 1581 and it remained in his family until 1946.