Manor of Shirwell

The Manor of Shirwell was a manor in North Devon, England, centred on the village of Shirwell and largely co-terminous with the parish of Shirwell. It was for many centuries successively the seat of two of the leading families of North Devon, the Beaumonts and their heirs the Chichesters of Raleigh, Pilton, both of which families were seated at the estate of Youlston within the manor of Shirwell. The manor house which survives today known as Youlston Park is one of the most architecturally important historic houses in North Devon and exists largely in its Georgian form, but retains many impressive late 17th-century interiors.

In the Domesday Book of 1086 it was one of the 176 landholdings in Devon held in-chief by Baldwin de Meulles, Sheriff of Devon, who held the largest fiefdom in Devon and was the 1st feudal baron of Okehampton.

Baldwin de Meulles' tenant at Shirwell as listed in Domesday Book was "Robert de Beaumont". The Courtenay family, later Earls of Devon, were from 1219 the successors to the feudal barony of Okehampton and thus continued as overlords of Shirwell into the 13th century, as recorded in the Book of Fees, and beyond.

In the Domesday Book of 1086 Ascerewelle (Shirwell) was one of at least four manors held in Devon, but merely as a mesne lord from Baldwin de Meulles, by the Norman magnate Robert de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Leicester, Count of Meulan (c. 1040/50 – 1118), to whom had been granted by William the Conqueror about 91 English manors in several counties for his service in the Norman Conquest of England. These four manors tenanted by Robert are listed consecutively within the section in Domesday Book listing Baldwin's holdings, as Shirwell, Ashford and two manors called Loxhore, thought to correspond to today's adjacent settlements of Higher Loxhore and Lower Loxhore.

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