Bremridge

Bremridge is a historic estate within the former hundred of South Molton in Devon, England. It is now within the parish of Filleigh but was formerly in that of South Molton. It is situated 8 miles north-west of South Molton. Since the construction of the nearby A361 North Devon Link Road direct access has been cut off from Bremridge to Filleigh and South Molton. The surviving wing of the mansion house built in 1654 is a Grade II* listed building.Bremridge Wood is the site of an Iron Age enclosure or hill fort, the earthwork of which is situated on a hillside forming a promontory above the River Bray. In Bremridge Wood survives a disused tunnel of the former Great Western Railway line between South Molton and Barnstaple, much of the course of which has been used for the A361. The tunnel is 319 yards long and was identified as "Bremridge Tunnel" in the 1889 Ordnance Survey map but as "Castle Hill Tunnel" in subsequent editions.

The Anglo-Saxon holder of the estate of Bremridge immediately before 1066, as recorded by the Domesday Book, was a certain Edmer, who also held, amongst others, the nearby estate of Alre, i.e. South Aller, one mile south of Bremridge, also later referred to as Aure and Sudaure. Concerning the etymology of Bremridge, Risdon (d.1640) (who called it Bromridge) stated: "lands subject to brambles and briers so the name importeth".

In the Domesday Book of 1086 BREMERIGE is listed as the 56th of the 99 Devonshire landholdings of Geoffrey de Montbray (d.1093), Bishop of Coutances, and was one of the 73 holdings he sub-infeudated to Drogo son of Mauger, his chief sub-tenant in Devon. Mauger his father was probably Mauger of Carteret who is listed in the Domesday Book as a tenant of Robert, Count of Mortain (d.1090) at his Devonshire manor of Donningstone in the parish of Clayhanger, Devon, and was also a tenant of several of the Count's manors in Somerset. The ancient manor of Carteret is on the west coast of Normandy, Manche, immediately to the east of the Channel Islands. The (expanded) text of the Domesday Book entry is as follows:

...
Wikipedia