John Scudamore (landowner)

Sir John Scudamore was a 15th-century English landowner from Herefordshire who acted as constable and steward of a number of Royal castles in South Wales. Active in fighting with the Welsh in 1402, he was still living in 1432, when it was discovered that he had married a daughter of Owain Glyndŵr.

A Scudamore received lands allotted him by the new Norman King, William the Conqueror, in the 11th century after the defeat of Harold Godwinson in 1066. He received the demesne of 'Sancta Keyna' as recorded in the Domesday Book, later called Kenchirche, which evolved into Kentchurch. The Scudamore family split into two lines over the generations and centuries, one line based at Holme Lacy and the other line based at Kentchurch.

The Holme Lacy line were anti-Welsh and opponents of the Welsh rising under Owain Glyndŵr. The Kentchurch line were more sympathetic to the Welsh grievances, possibly because their geographical location, closer to Wales, enabled a greater understanding and knowledge of the people and their culture first hand.

In the 13th century, through marriage they also inherited property and land within the Lordship of Abergavenny, at Troy, very near Monmouth. A Sir Alan Scudamore married the sole heiress of Troy House. A Philip Scudamore of Troy became a leader of some of Owain Glyndŵr's forces and was captured at Shrewsbury in 1409 and beheaded for his part in the rebellion.

A branch of the Scudamore family later achieved prominence through agricultural developments in the seventeenth century.

Sir John Scudamore held lands in Ewyas, Kentchurch and Holme Lacy and was the Deputy Squire of King Henry IV's Lordship of Brecon.

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