Kingston, Staverton

Kingston is an historic estate in the parish of Staverton in Devon, England. The surviving large mansion house, known as Kingston House (near the village of Broadhempston) is a grade II* listed building, rebuilt in 1743 by John Rowe, after a fire had destroyed the previous structure. The Kingston Aisle or Kingston Chapel survives in the parish church of Staverton (dedicated to St Paul de Leon), built by and for the use of, the successive owners of the Kingston estate.

The family of Hext resided at a place named "Kingston", which although Pole (d.1635) suggests (almost as a post scriptum) is Kingston in the parish of Staverton ("At Kingston their also dwelled Thomas Hext in King Edw 4 tyme"), cannot be reconciled with the well documented contemporaneous tenure of Kingston, Staverton, by the Barnhous family, whose heiress is known to have married John Rowe of Totnes. There is however a parish and village named Kingston in South Devon, about 14 miles south-west of Kingston, Staverton, and Thomas Hext "of Kingston", the first member of the family recorded in the Heraldic Visitations of Devon, married a member of the Fortescue family of Whympston, Modbury, about 2 1/2 miles north-west of the village of Kingston.

Kingston was a seat of the Barnhous (alias Bernhous, Barnhous, etc.) family, of whom the first mentioned by Pole was William Bernhous, seated there during the reigns of Kings Edward I (1272-1307) and Edward II (1307-1327). He was followed by John I, John II, John III and John IV, who married a daughter of Richard Chichester (1423–1496), lord of the manor of Raleigh in the parish of Pilton, Devon, Sheriff of Devon in 1469 and 1475.

The Rowe family was seated at Kingston for several generations.

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