Heraldry of Castle Combe

In and around the Manor of Castle Combe and in the church there are the arms of a number of families connected with the Manor. Many of these are the arms of ladies who married Scropes, and they are depicted — in the Hall and elsewhere — as impaled: the dexter half of the shield bearing the Scrope arms (Azure a Bend or), the sinister half the wife's.

On this page, for greater clarity, the wife's arms occupy the whole shield. As far as can be ascertained the colours of the arms are correct, and therefore not always the same as in the Hall. The arms of Dunstanville are as shown in the church, although they differ slightly from the more usually accepted arms of that family.

The Domesday Book records Castle Combe as being owned by Hunfridi de Insula (Humphrey de Lisle), whose daughter and heir married a Dunstanville. Reginald Dunstanville, Earl of Cornwall and the natural son of Henry I, built the Castle, and the property remained in the hands of the Dunstanville family for five generations.

Petronella, the daughter of Sir Walter Dunstanville, married Sir Robert de Montfort, by whom she had a son, William, who ceded his rights in 1308 to Bartholomew Lord Badlesmere, who took possession in 1313. Margaret, one of his four daughters, married John de Tibetot (Tiptoft), bringing Castle Combe to the marriage. Their son Robert succeeded in 1368 and left three infant daughters, the wardship of whom King Edward III granted to Sir Richard Scrope of Bolton.

It was this Sir Richard who was involved in the long suit, heard in the Earl Marshal's Court, to determine whether Scrope or Grosvenor had the right to bear the arms Azure a Bend or. In 1390 the Court found in favour of Scrope, and Grosvenor was granted the arms Azure a Garb (Sheaf of Corn) or. In the nineteenth century the Duke of Westminster named one of his racehorses "Bendor" in reference to this case.

Sir Richard Scrope married Blanche de la Pole in 1370, and two of their sons married Tiptoft girls. One of these, Sir Stephen, married Millicent Tiptoft, and they had a son, Stephen, who in 1430 married Jane Bingham. Their son Sir John married Margaret Wrottesley in 1481, and their son Richard married Mary Ludlow in 1532. Richard and Mary's son George married Susannah Eyre and had John, who in 1596 married Jane Brune.

Their son, also John, married twice and by his second wife, Helena Gorges, whom he married in 1641, had another John. This John married first in 1662 Anne Gore and had Charles; he married secondly Jane Nelson and had Richard. The estate went first to Charles' son Gorges, who had no children, and was succeeded by his brother, the Rev. Richard, who married Anne Lambert. Their second son William succeeded and married Emma Long in 1794, and their daughter Emma Phipps Scrope came into the property on William's death in 1852.

Emma married George Buncombe Poulett Thomson, who took the name of Scrope and was granted as arms Azure a Bend or with a canton argent charged with a crosslet sable, for difference. George's father, John Thompson, took the name and arms of Buncombe and Poulett — from which he was descended — in order to retain those names. George was the author of a very full history of Castle Combe.

Emma and George having no children, the estate was sold in 1867 to Edward Chaddock Lowndes, the second son of Richard Gorst and Mary Lowndes, who took his mother's surname. He died without issue and was succeeded by his brother Rt Hon Sir John Eldon Gorst, whose son, also Sir John, died during his father's lifetime but left a daughter Katherine, who succeeded to the property on her grandfather's death in 1916. She married first William James Lowther Lysley and they had a son, William Paul Gorst Lysley, born in 1927.

There are three more shields in the Hall which are probably those of Marshall, Saxam and Foliot, which appear in the quarterings of Poulett and Scrope. They are probably not wives but ancestors of wives of Scrope. The De Lisle shield is blank, as the de Insulas were here before the days of heraldry.