Wadham, Knowstone

The manor of Wadham in the parish of Knowstone, and the nearby manors of Chenudestane, and Chenuestan (more anciently known as Cnudstone and Cnuston, with the possible meaning "Canutestone") in Devon, are listed in the Domesday Book of 1086: "Ulf holds Wadeham. He himself held it in the time of King Edward" ('The Confessor').

Samuel Lysons suggested in his Magna Britannia that Ulf may have been an ancestor to the Wadhams.

'Wadeham' was the earliest recorded residence of the prominent Wadham (originally de Wadham) family, which ended in the senior male line in the person of Nicholas Wadham (1531–1609), of Merryfield, Ilton in Somerset and Edge, Branscombe in Devon, co-founder of Wadham College, Oxford, founded largely after his death, by his wife Dorothy Wadham (died 1618).

The Domesday Book of 1086 lists WADEHAM as held in chief from King William the Conqueror by Ulf, one of 'the king's (Saxon) thanes' in Devonshire.

Ulf, who in 1066 had held Wadeham and other manors in Wessex and elsewhere under the Saxon King Edward the Confessor, was one of only twenty Saxon thanes in Devonshire who survived the Norman Conquest of 1066 and retained their antiquated high status as thanes and became tenants-in-chief under the new Norman king. However, he appears less prominent than some others of his fellow surviving Devonshire thanes who held up to eleven manors each under King William after 1086, whilst Ulf only added the manor of Axminster which he held from William Cheever, alias Chièvre after 1086 from the King in desmesne. the text is as follows:

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