Feudal barony of Berry Pomeroy

The Feudal Barony of Berry Pomeroy was one of eightfeudal baronies in Devonshire which existed during the mediaeval era, and had its caput at the manor of Berry Pomeroy, 20 miles south of the City of Exeter and 2 miles east of the town of Totnes, where was situated Totnes Castle, the caput of the feudal barony of Totnes. The exact location of the 11th-century baron's residence is unclear, perhaps it was next to the parish church on the site of the present former rectory known as Berry House, as it is now believed that the present surviving nearby ruined Berry Pomeroy Castle was not built until the 15th century. The manor and barony was owned by the Pomeroy family from before 1086 until 1547 when it was purchased by Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset, in whose family it has since remained and today the manor and much of the former estate belongs to his descendant the Duke of Somerset, seated at Maiden Bradley House in Wiltshire.

The descent of the barony in the de la Pomeroy family is as follows:

Ralph de la Pomeroy (d. pre-1100), (alias Pomeraie, Pomerei, etc.), 1st feudal baron of Berry , one of the 52 Devon Domesday Book tenants-in-chief of King William the Conqueror and a major landholder listed in the Domesday Book of 1086. He participated in the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, for which services he was rewarded by King William the Conqueror with the grant of 58 manors or other holdings in Devon and 2 manors in Somerset. He was lord of the manor of La Pommeraye, Calvados in Normandy. His brother was William Cheever (floruit 1086), another Devon Domesday Book tenant-in-chief, whose 46 Domesday Book holdings later formed the feudal barony of Bradninch, Devon. Many of the holdings of the two brothers had been split from single manors into two parts, one for each brother. His sister was Beatrix, who held from her other brother William Cheever the manor of Southleigh. Ralph is said by Vivian (1895) to have been a benefactor to the Hospital of St John the Baptist at Falaise in Normandy, which was not however founded until 1127, therefore after his supposed date of death of 1100. He was one of the two commissioners appointed to carry to the royal treasury at Winchester the tax collected in Devon resulting from the assessment made based upon the Domesday Book survey.

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