Combe, Dulverton

Combe is a historic estate in Somerset, England, situated between the town of Dulverton and the village of Brushford.

Until the Dissolution of the Monasteries under King Henry VIII, the estate was one of the possessions of Taunton Priory, which also held the manor of Dulverton.

In the medieval period the Combe estate was probably held by the Combe family, although in 1254 the lord of Dulverton, Richard de Turberville, held land there. Alfred of Combe, the Bailiff of Dulverton in 1225, may have come from the estate – doubt arises because Combe, meaning steep-sided valley, is a common name in west Somerset. In 1425 John Combe was a free tenant of Taunton Priory, and Joan Combe, who has been assumed to be an heiress to the estate, married Edward Sydenham at some time before 1506, to whose Sydenham descendants Combe was home until 1874.

It was the seat of a junior branch of the de Sydenham (later Sydenham) family, which took its surname from the manor of Sydenham, near Bridgwater in Somerset. The family split into many prominent branches, the senior branch seated at Sydenham and Kittisford died out in the male line in the 15th century when Sydenham passed via the heiress to the Cave family, then to the Percival family, later Earl of Egmont. The next senior line was seated in the early 15th century at Combe Sydenham in the parish of Stogumber, Somerset, of which family was Simon Sydenham (died 1438), Bishop of Chichester, and which later inherited the Somerset manors of Orchard Sydenham (later called Orchard Wyndham) and Brympton d'Evercy, which latter remained the seat of the Sydenham baronets, which title was created in 1641. In 1871 Rev. Charles St. Barbe Sydenham (1823–1904), whose son was born at Combe in 1861, was declared bankrupt, which may have necessitated the sale of Combe. The descent of Combe in the Sydenham family was as follows:

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