Stafford Barton

Stafford (anciently Stowford) is an historic manor in the parish of Dolton in Devon, England. The present manor house known as Stafford Barton is a grade II* listed building. A house of some form has existed on the manor probably since the Norman Conquest in the 11th century. Surviving walls can be dated to the 16th century. Many additions and renovations have taken place in the intervening years, and in the early 20th century Charles Luxmoore made many alterations and extensions and imported several major architectural features from ancient local mansions undergoing demolition so that "it has become somewhat difficult to discern its original form". In the nineteenth century the estate was very substantial, with 400 acres of associated farmland and a large staff, and by 1956, at the end of the Luxmoore tenure, it had grown to 1,460 acres with 7 farms, several cottages and smallholdings.

The Domesday Book of 1086 lists the manor of STAFORD as the first of the 7 manors or other landholdings held by Ansger of Montacute, one of the Devon Domesday Book tenants-in-chief of King William the Conqueror. It is not stated whether he held it in demesne of sub-infeudated it to his own tenant. The other manors and landholdings he held in Devonshire were: one virgate of land in Great Torrington; Brimblecombe; Cheldon; Muxbere; Sutton; Dolton. His holdings later became the property of the feudal barony of Gloucester, the Devonshire caput of which was Winkleigh. Ansgar is called elsewhere in Domesday Book "Ansgar of Senarpont", which manor is situated in the French department of Somme. He is apparently the same man as "Ansgar the Breton" who held other estates in Devon and Somerset from Robert, Count of Mortain, half-brother of William the Conqueror, in Devon namely: Buckland Brewer, East Putford, Bulkworthy and Smytham. Staford was in the historic Hundred of North Tawton.

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