Durston: Manors
A History of the County of Somerset: Volume 6, Andersfield, Cannington, and North Petherton Hundreds (Bridgwater and Neighbouring Parishes).
An undertenant, Richard, held Durston in 1086. (fn. 10) William of Erleigh possessed the manor by 1177, (fn. 11) possibly in succession to his father John of Erleigh, who had received the hundred and manor of North Petherton in Henry I’s reign. (fn. 12) Ownership descended in the Erleigh family like North Petherton manor. On the death of Philip of Erleigh c. 1275 (fn. 13) Philip’s widow Rose, later wife of Geoffrey of Wroxhall, (fn. 14) received Durston in dower. (fn. 15) Rose was still alive in 1304-5. (fn. 16) She was succeeded by her son (Sir) John of Erleigh, who died c. 1323, (fn. 17) and by her grandson, also Sir John, who died c. 1337. (fn. 18) John of Erleigh, son of the last, born in 1322 was knighted in 1371 (fn. 19) after service with the Black Prince in Spain, (fn. 20) and died c. 1410. (fn. 21) After John’s death the site of the manor of Durston and woods in the park were given by John’s widow Isabel to their only daughter Margaret and to her second husband Sir Walter Sandys, (fn. 22) and Sandys was holding a fee in Durston in 1428. (fn. 23) Three years later the manor was held by Isabel, who by 1431 was the widow of Sir John of Rowdon. (fn. 24) She died in 1434, leaving Durston and the remainder of the Erleigh inheritance to Margaret. (fn. 25) Margaret married thirdly Sir William Cheyne, and both she and her husband died in 1443. The heir was Margaret’s son Thomas Seymour, the issue of her first marriage. (fn. 26)
The manor house at Durston was regularly occupied by the Erleigh family in the 14th century, (fn. 47) and its kitchen and oxhouse were repaired in 1328-9. (fn. 48) The present house, known as Lodge Farm by the mid 18th century, (fn. 49) stands on the north side of the church.
In or after 1170, and probably before 1176, William of Erleigh gave all his land at Buckland, Durston chapel, and land and churches elsewhere for the foundation of a house of Augustinian canons at Buckland. The canons were dispersed before c. 1180 and possession of the house and land was given to the Hospitallers to provide for a convent where all the sisters of the order were to be placed. The order also established a preceptory there, later endowed with a farm at Cogload, (fn. 51) but the sisters received endowments distinct from those of the preceptory, and some of the preceptory’s land and income was assigned to them. (fn. 52) The grant to both the canons and the Hospitallers was in free alms, (fn. 53) but in 1304 Buckland was said to be part of 2 fees held by the Hospitallers of Edmund Mortimer. (fn. 54)
The Augustinian canons at Buckland were given the chapel of Durston by William of Erleigh. (fn. 117) The Hospitallers, their successors, were instituted as parsons in 1189, (fn. 118) and in 1335 they were recorded as holding the church with the tithes of Cogload. (fn. 119)
A P Baggs and M C Siraut, ‘Durston: Manors’, in A History of the County of Somerset: Volume 6, Andersfield, Cannington, and North Petherton Hundreds (Bridgwater and Neighbouring Parishes), ed. R W Dunning and C R Elrington (London, 1992), pp. 259-262. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/som/vol6/pp259-262 [accessed 23 May 2023].
