108 KINGSBRIDGE 



We may add that J. Luscombe, Esq., says, "Wood in 

 Woodleigh, where the family also lived was a very large, 

 low, Tudor mansion, originally the seat of one of the 

 many branches of the Fortescue family. During the 

 minority of the late John Luscombe Luscombe, Esq., a 

 great portion of the house was taken down, the porch and 

 two or three gables only remaining : one of the wings is 

 used as a barn, and still goes by the name of 'the dining 

 parlour,' and on the walls of which fresco paintings might, 

 a few years since, be here and there discerned: the chapel 

 stood on the opposite side of the enclosed court-yard: 

 the andirons of the hall chimney, three feet high, form 

 the stand of a marble table at Combe Royal." 



In this parish is also Bowringsleigh ; a large and 

 ancient Tudor mansion, recently restored, but admirably 

 retaining its former character. It lies in a beautiful valley 

 below West Alvington. 



Sir William Pole says of this place, " Bowrings Legh was 

 th' ancient dwellinge of the name of Bowringe ; the last of 

 which name, called Thomas, had issue Alis married unto 

 William Pike of Pike's Ash, in Somersetshire, and had 

 issue Robert Pike, which had issue Thomas, which by 

 Mary, daughter of John Stowell, of Cotheston, had issue 

 Elizabeth, married unto one James Leghe, called Reynolds, 

 sometyme a singing boy in the church of St. Peter, in 

 Exon, a man of great baseness, which hath sold a great 

 estate, which he had by the said Elisabeth, and this unto 

 Nicholas Webber, alias Gilbard Esq., who now dwelleth 

 theire. Theire is now a tytle sett on foote, that the said 

 Thomas Pike should have a sonne called Stephan, long 

 tyme concealed, and never known unto his supposed father, 

 or publickly unto any other, before all Pike's land was sold." 



