Kilworthy House, 1846?, Steel l.engr. vign; London: Rock & Co. No. 881. 18 Jul 1861
From Evans, Rachel. Home scenes: or, Tavistock and its vicinity. London: Simpkin and Marshall; Tavistock: J. L. Commins, 1846. p. 59.
Kilworthy is a proper and genteel residence for all who love country
quarters. Encircled by groups of noble forest trees, - here a line of
chestnuts lifting their glowing blossoms in the air, spring after
spring with never-tiring beauty, there a few stately yews waving their
sombre boughs in triumph over the storms of a hundred winters: in that
mossy dell the gnarled roots of some towering oaks fixed with the
strength of adamant in their kindred soil; and at a distance a grove
of elms, affording shelter to a colony of ever clamorous rooks; all
around speaks to the eye, if not the ear, of the venerable antiquity
of the place. Then the well-shaven green, the rising terraces, the
prim garden, the ancient summer-houses with carved heads frowning on
"each dainty dame who whilome took pleas-aunce therein," present
beauties to all who are not wholly prejudiced in favour of the sad
innovations of the nineteenth century.
Kilworthy House was built by Sir John Glanville (b.1542) in the 16th century but the present house was rebuilt c. 1800.
Earliest Inhabitance:
Sir Glandville was an attorney who entered Lincoln's Inn, May 1567. He was called to the Bar in 1574 and was a Reader in 1589. He was a member of Parliament in 1585, 1586 and 1592. He was the first attorney who is recorded to have reached the bench. He was Judge of the Court of Common Pleas in 1598. He built the mansion of Kilworthy near Tavistock in Devon, England. He died in 1600 and is buried in the Tavistock Church where there is an elaborate tomb with a recumbent statue of him in his robes. In 1589 he was made Sargent.
Sir John Glanville's son, also named Sir John Glanville was born in 1586 at Kilworthy, Tavistock and was the youngest son of the elder Sir John and Alice Skerret. He was elected Speaker of the Short Parliament, 1640. He took part in the impeachment of Buckingham, 1626. He and Winifred Boucher had three daughters and four sons. He was elected a member of Parliment from Oxford University during the commonwealth. He had extensive estates, having bought Laverstoke, in Hampshire, in 1637; Highway in 1640, which cost him 4700 pounds, and was patron of the livings at Broad Hinton, Wiltshire, and Lamerton in Devonshire. Fuller calls him one of the biggest stars of the law. He was knighted in 1641.
