Manor of Bicton

The Manor of Bicton is a former historic manor in the parish of Bicton in east Devon, England.

In the Exchequer version of the Domesday Book of 1086, the manor of Bechetone was listed as the 1st of the 16 holdings unded the heading Terrae Servientium Regis ("Lands of the King's servants"). It was held in-chief from the king (by service unknown) by Wills Porto, that is "William the Porter", meaning "gatekeeper" (from the Latin porta a gate). In the Exon version of Domesday Book however this manor is listed with the same tenant, but under the heading Terra Nicolai Balistarii ("Land of Nicholas the Bowman"), thus William held not as a tenant-in-chief but as a mesne tenant from Nicholas. Nicholas also held the manors of Webbery, Greenslinch, Stoketeignhead, Rocombe, Ogwell, Holbeam, Bagtor, Ideford, Staplehill, Buckland-in-the-Moor, Aller and possibly Northleigh. It appears that the Exchequer version of Domesday Book corrected the Exon positioning to show William the Porter as a servant and tenant-in-chief of the king.

In the reign of King Henry I (1100–1135) the manor of Bicton was granted by the king to John Janitor, who held the manor by the feudal tenure of grand serjeanty requiring him to provide a county jail, which was an honourable position of trust. The Latin noun Janitor means "door-keeper", generally understood in the sense janitor carceris, "door-keeper of a jail". Thus the tenant took his surname from his form of tenure. The prison was later transferred to a building beneathExeter Castle in the county capital Exeter, (see Exeter Prison), but the feudal tenant of Bicton was nevertheless for many centuries required to meet part of the repair and maintenance costs of the newly sited jail. The Devon topographer John Swete (died 1821) stated that Dennis Rolle Esq. (died 1797), the proprietor of Bicton at the time of his visit, had paid the sum of £1,000 to the Treasury to be released in perpetuity from his vestigial feudal liabilities. The release was effected by an Act of Parliament in 1787, Public Act, 27 George III, c. 59 summarised as:

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