page_title: William Pole (died 1587)
section_title: Lands acquired
hierarchical_section_title: William Pole (died 1587) / Lands acquired
caption_attribution_description: English: "Gateway of Old Shute House", lithograph c.1840 by William Spreat, Exeter
context_page_description: William Pole, Esquire, was a lawyer and speculator in church lands following the Dissolution of the Monasteries who served as MP for Lyme Regis in 1545, Bridport in 1553 and for West Looe in 1559. He acquired lands in East Devon and was the founder of the influential and wealthy Pole family of Shute, Devon. He was the father of the famous Sir William Pole, the antiquary, historian of Devon.
context_section_description: In 1560 at Colyford, Devon,  he purchased from  Sir William Petre,  principal Secretary of State to Queen Mary, the "house, materials and furniture"  of Old Shute House, Colyton, for £300. This property thenceforth became the main seat of the family until it was given to the National Trust shortly after 1955. In 1562 he acquired from Petre a lease for 1,200 years of the Shute estate, the freehold of which was not purchased until 1788 by his descendant the 6th Pole baronet. By coincidence the Pole family of Ford in Devon were distantly descended from Alexander Bonville, a younger brother of Sir William II Bonville (d.1407), Sheriff of Somerset, Dorset and Devon, who built the mediaeval hall house at Shute in 1380. Alexander had married the heiress Hawise de la Forde, and thereafter had adopted for himself and his descendants the surname de la Forde. It was his great-great-granddaughter Johan Pole de la Forde who married Arthur Pole of the Cheshire Poles. He also acquired the manor of Charmouth, seven miles from Shute from Petre in 1575, and presented a silver chalice to Charmouth Church in that same year.
caption: Elizabethan gateway of Old Shute House, believed to have been built by William Pole, Esq., shortly after his purchase of the house. He enlarged the house itself, but his work is indistinguishable from the works also effected by his son the antiquary
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