page_title: Manor of Heanton Punchardon
section_title: Punchardon
hierarchical_section_title: Manor of Heanton Punchardon / Descent of the manor / Punchardon
caption_attribution_description: English: Arms of Punchardon, of Heanton Punchardon, Devon, according to Guillim (d.1621): Sable, six plates three, two, one (Guillim, John, Display of Heraldry, 1632, p.297)
context_page_description: The Manor of Heanton Punchardon was a manor in the parish of Heanton Punchardon, Devon, England.
context_section_description: Hantone is recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as held by Robert de Pont-Chardon from Baldwin the Sheriff (died 1090), first feudal baron of Okehampton.  The manor of Hantone included a mill, a fishery, had land for 12 ploughs with 24 villagers, with 10 acres of meadow, 100 acres of pasture and 100 acres of woodland. Of livestock it had 11 cattle, 9 pigs and 163 sheep.
  Robert's family were lords of the manor of Pont-Chardon ("Chardon Bridge", literally "Thistle Bridge") (modern Pontchardon) in Calvados, Normandy, situated on the River Touques. His name was Latinized to de Ponte Cardonis or de Ponte Carduno ("from the bridge of Cardon"). Robert de Pont-Chardon was certainly well rewarded for his companionship and support by Baldwin FitzGilbert (died 1090), Sheriff of Devon, and feudal baron of Okehampton (alias Baldwin de Meulles and Baldwin du Sap), tenant-in-chief of 176 manors in Devon, who granted him lands in England amounting to four and a quarter knight's fees. Baldwin's chief seats in Normandy were Meulles and Le Sap, from which he took his alternative surnames, which were located 7 kilometers north-east and 7 kilometers south-east of Pont-Chardon respectively.  The lands granted to Robert were chiefly in Devon, Somerset, Hertfordshire and a manor in Hampshire. His Devon estates comprised the following five manors, all in North Devon and all held from Baldwin the Sheriff (whose follower he thus may have been):
  Heanton (Braunton hundred)
  Hagginton (Ilfracombe parish, Braunton hundred)
  Charles (anciently Charnies) (Shirwell hundred)
  Mockham (Charles parish, Shirwell hundred)
  Blakewell (Marwood parish, Braunton hundred)
  In 1894 Reverend Elgood Punchard published his research into the Punchard family in a volume entitled  "Punchard of Heaton Punchardon - Records of an Unfortunate Family" in which he traced the descent from wealth and standing in royal favour in the Norman era to relative obscurity by Tudor times in the 16th century. Rev. Punchard described the descent of the Punchardon family thus (largely following Pole):
  Sir William I de Punchardon, eldest son of Robert, who retained the Devon and Hampshire estates but those in Hertfordshire Somerset fell to younger brothers.
  Roger de Punchardon (died 1243), eldest son. After a few transactions with his brothers Reginald and Robert, he confined his interest to Devonshire. In 1220 he acquired the manor of Coombe  His nephew Oliver, son to Reginald, was the last of the Hampshire family concerned with Devon and was summoned once as jurator in the hundred of Haytor.
  Sir William II de Punchardon, eldest son of Roger, succeeded in 1243 and largely increased the estates. In 1254 he was "coronator", with de Briwere and another knight, concerning wreckage; in 1259 he was a juror concerning the claims of Isabell de Forz, Countess of Albemarle, daughter of Baldwin de Redvers, 6th Earl of Devon (1217–1245). His widow Ermegard de Punchardon outlived him twenty years, and married Alexander de Viteri, who tried (though ineffectually) to retain possession of Heanton and Charles.
  Sir John Punchardon, son and heir, last of the direct male line. Mention of him is frequently made in various documents down to 1296; indeed, as Westcote (d.circa 1637) quaintly says, "There are few ancient evidences in those parts, whereunto the Punchardons have not been witnesses: yea sometimes two or three of them...Heanton is surnamed Punchardon; the parish reserving charily the old lord's name of long antiquity, and therewithal copious in some ages". he left three daughters as co-heiresses:
  Ermegard de Punchardon, heiress of Heanton Punchardon, wife of Sir Philip Beaumont of Shirwell. She left an only son John Beaumont, who married Alice Scudamore and in the second generation, the male issue here also was extinct. But Joan Beaumont, the wife of Sir James Chudleigh, gave Heanton Punchardon to Richard Beaumont, nephew of the first Sir Philip Beaumont, whose last descendant and heiress, Joan Beaumont, married John Basset of Whitechapel, Bishops Nympton. John Basset, after several lawsuits in Chancery, s
caption: Arms of Punchardon, of Heanton Punchardon, according to Guillim (died 1621): Sable, six plates three, two, one[1]
exif: {}