Whitechapel, Bishops Nympton

Whitechapel is an ancient former manor within the parish of Bishops Nympton, in north Devon. It was the earliest known residence of the locally influential Bassett family until 1603. The core of the present manor house is late 16th or early 17th century, with later additions and alterations, and was classed as Grade I listed on 9 June 1952.

The 1086 Domesday Book entry for the very large manor of Nimetone, with land for 52 ploughs, is listed as one of 24 holdings of the Bishop of Exeter, and was held by him in demesne. It does not mention Whitechapel or any sub-manors within Nimetone. The first record of Whitechapel as a member of the manor of Nymeton Episcopi (Latin for "Nympton of the Bishop") is in the records of Feudal Aids, where it is called in French La Chapele and in Latin Alba Capella ("White Chapel") Coulter, writing in 1993, although he found several early references to Whitechapel, was unable to find any historical record describing the founding of the Whitechapel, but discovered other licences granted by Bishop Brantingham in 1374 for a chapel at Grilstone, in the parish of Bishops Nympton, in which mass was to be said annually on St Nicholas's Day, and a further multiple licence granted in 1425 by Bishop Lacy to Sir William Champyon, vicar of Nymet Episcopi for divine service to be celebrated in the chapels within his parish of St Peter, St Nicholas, St Mary Magdalene and St Margaret.

Next to the manor house there are remains seemingly of a gothic window below ground level within a low building, but the evidence is not certain that this relates to the Whitechapel. Some sources indeed identify this as a bee bole.

The Devon Historian Tristram Risdon (died 1640) in his work "The Survey of Devon" stated that Whitechapel was "the ancient inheritance of the Peverells". A branch of the great Norman family of Peverell, feudal barons of The Peak in Derbyshire, was seated in Devon at Sampford Peverell and held the additional Devon manors of Kerswell in the parish of Broadhembury and Aller in the parish of Cullompton. The latter two manors were among the ten held by Ralph Pagnell in the Domesday Book and soon afterwards passed to the Peverell family. The manors of Aller and Kerswell were granted by Matilda Peverell, the daughter of Pagan (or Payne) Peverel, a knight who fought in the First Crusade (1096–1099), to Montacute Priory in Somerset.Kerswell Priory, as the latter became known, became a cell for two Cluniac monks dependant from Montacute.

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