Great House, Colyton

Great House on South Street in the town of Colyton, Devon, is the remnant of an historic Elizabethan mansion house built by the Yonge family, originally prominent wool merchants in the town, later Yonge baronets. It is a grade II* listed building.

It is situated on the south-east side of the town of Colyton, on the road leading to Lyme Regis, today called South Street. It dates from the early 17th century and is U-shaped in plan, possibly the remnant of a previous larger building.

It was built by John II Yonge (d. 1612) of Colyton, son and heir of John I Yonge of Axminster, Devon. John II Yonge married Alice Stere, by whom he had two sons and five daughters, including his eldest son and heir Walter Yonge (1579–1649), a lawyer, merchant and notable diarist. Walter married Jane Periam, a daughter and co-heiress of Sir John Peryam (1541 – c. 1618) of Exeter, Devon, MP four times (Barnstaple 1584, Bossiney 1586, Exeter 1589 and 1593) and Mayor of Exeter, by his wife Elizabeth Hone, a daughter and co-heir of Robert Hone of Ottery. Jane's uncle was Sir William Peryam (1534 – 9 October 1604) of Little Fulford, near Crediton in Devon, Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer. His eldest son and heir was Sir John Yonge, 1st Baronet (1603–1663), MP., of Colyton, who served alongside his father in the Long Parliament. Sir Walter Yonge, 3rd Baronet (1653-1731), grandson of the 1st Baronet and a Member of Parliament for Honiton (b. 1679) and for Ashburton, abandoned his ancestral seat at Great House shortly after 1680 when he purchased the estate of Escot in the parish of Talaton, Devon, where he built a grand Palladian country house. As related by Rev. John Swete (d. 1821) who passed through Colyton in 1795 on one of his Picturesque Tours, tradition states that after the Duke of Monmouth landed on Torbay at Lyme Regis on 11 June 1685, at the commencement of his ill-fated Monmouth Rebellion, he proceeded to Colyton and was secreted in Great House, then still occupied by Sir Walter Yonge, 3rd Baronet, whose new house at Escot was not completed until after the Rebellion. It is possible that the 3rd Baronet was a supporter of the Rebellion, as it is known that several of his workmen engaged on the building of Escot House left their work to fight for the Duke at the Battle of Sedgemoor, Somerset, on 6 July 1685, where the Rebellion was finally quashed. Several of these workmen-soldiers were captured by the king's forces and were executed at a crossway near Escot on the order of the notorious Judge Jeffreys "as a specimen of his suspicions of (the 3rd Baronet)" Above a chimneypiece in the north-east first floor room of Great House survives a depiction of the coat of arms of the Stuart kings.

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