Northmoor, Dulverton

Northmoor is an historic estate in the parish of Dulverton in Somerset, England. The Victorian mansion house known as Northmoor House is set amongst steep wooded valleys on the southern edge of Exmoor.

Northmoor House was built in 1856/9 by John Arthur Locke, a partner in the lead manufacturing firm of Locke and Blackett of Newcastle upon Tyne. The site was reputedly chosen by his wife. He purchased surrounding lands eventually forming an estate of 2,000 acres. John Arthur Locke (d.1888) of Northmoor married Adèle Caroline Drewe (d.1895), who in 1891 inherited from her brother Major-General Francis Edward Drewe (1830-1891) the historic estate of The Grange, Broadhembury in Devon, the seat of the Drewe family since the 16th century. His eldest son and heir was Arthur Charles Edward Locke, of Northmoor, who sold Grange which thus in 1903 passed from the ownership of the Drewe family and its descendants. John Locke built nearby the "Northmoor Chapel" (burned down in 1900) to service the spiritual needs of the estate, and employed Rev. George Jellicoe as chaplain and tutor to his eight children.

In 1874 Northmoor was purchased by Frederick Wills, a member of the Wills family of Bristol, founders of the Imperial Tobacco Company, which in 1966 was the family with the largest number of millionaires in the British Isles, with 14 members having left fortunes in excess of one million pounds since 1910, totalling £55 million. In 1897 Frederick Wills of Batsford Park in Gloucestershire and of Northmoor House was created a baronet "of Northmoor in the County of Somerset". He was a director of W. D. & H. O. Wills, which later merged into the Imperial Tobacco Company, and was a Liberal Unionist Member of Parliament for Bristol North. He was the younger brother of Sir Edward Wills, 1st Baronet, and the cousin of William Wills, 1st Baron Winterstoke. In 1929 his son Sir Gilbert Wills, 2nd Baronet was raised to the peerage as Baron Dulverton "of Batsford in the County of Gloucester". In 1874 a new stable block with clock tower was built at the rear of the house, but were demolished in the 1950s. Also built by the Wills family were staff accommodation and the Gardeners Cottage and buildings at Kennel Farm. The Wills family of Northmoor were associated with the Dulverton Foxhounds, since split into two hunts, the Dulverton Foxhounds (East) (since renamed the Exmoor Farmers Foxhounds) and the Dulverton Foxhounds (West). The sinister supporter of the coat of arms adopted by Baron Dulverton is a "huntsman of the Dulverton Hunt".

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