344 
JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
south side of Bedford Street, from Westwell Street on ; and 
the residence would be closely adjacent to the church. 
The earliest dated deed among the Edgcumbe muniments does 
not directly link itself with Stonehouse. It is a grant in 1226 
(10 Henry III.) from John de Valletort to Thomas Fitz Kalph, of the 
lordship of Crimel, with an acre of Cornish land in Hymbecombe 
(Empacombe), and a piece of land which Godfrey Pleia held of 
the said John in the lordship of Crimel, with other lands. 
Three undated deeds, which are associated with Stonehouse, 
seem to connect themselves, however, with this. By the first, 
Eoger de Valletorta grants Kalph son of Eichard, his whole land 
of Crimela and Machra, to hold in fee and inheritance by the 
service of the ninth part of a knight's fee. By the second, Regi- 
nald de Valletorta grants to Kalph son of Ralph the whole land 
of Crimell and Machra, with the passage of Crimell, &c, which 
Roger, Reginald's father, had granted to Ralph, Ralph's father, 
with the free passage and fishery of the water of Tamer e, to hold 
as above. By the third, the same Ralph grants to his brother 
Thomas the whole land of Crimell and Macre. 
These Ralphs and Thomases, and their descendants, are the 
family whom we subsequently find with the territorial surname of 
Stonehouse. Their origin is distinguished, though barred. Richard, 
the father of the first-mentioned Ralph de Stonehouse was no less a 
personage than Richard, Earl of Cornwall, son of King John, King 
of the Romans as he is best known in history ; and since there is no 
Ralph among his legitimate descendants, there is some reason to 
infer that this son was the son of Richard's mistress, Joan de 
Valletort, and that the grant made was not without consideration 
of kinship. 1 
We have Thomas, son of Ralph de Stonhous, mentioned in 
1298 (26 Edward I.), probably the same (but they all seem to 
have been Ralphs and Thomases in turn), and we find him, in 
1299, demising to Roger de Haston a moiety of land in Won- 
1 Some of the Valletort family had undoubtedly, however, previously 
taken name from Stonehouse ; for example John or Joel de Stanhust, who 
gave the canons of Plympton the right of free fishery per totam terram vicam, 
attaching a curious condition about the division of the fish : " qd si Batilli 
nostri pprij sediuvire sibi obtenuerunt in piscando in terra meo per equalis 
porcus captura piscum inter nos dividati." He was probably grandson of the 
Reginald of Domesday. 
