The Bonvilles were one of the great medieval families of East Devon, and their influence can still be traced across the landscape between Colyton, Southleigh and Shute. Wiscombe Park, now known for its hillclimb course, was once part of their wider estate. In the reign of Henry III the land passed from Otterton Priory to Sir William Bonville, who used the surrounding hills as a deer park. When the foundations of the present house at Wiscombe were dug in the 1820s, a large quantity of antlers was uncovered, a reminder of the Bonvilles’ medieval management of the valley.
The family’s principal seat, however, was at nearby Shute. Shute House became the centre of their Devon power base, and from there the Bonvilles extended their influence across Cornwall, Wiltshire, Somerset and much of East Devon. Their story is closely tied to the turbulence of the fifteenth century. Sir William Bonville I established the family’s prominence, but it was his descendant, William Bonville, 1st Baron Bonville, who became entangled in the Wars of the Roses and the long‑running feud with the Courtenays.
The feud reached its most dramatic point in 1455 after the Battle of Clyst Heath, when the Courtenays rode to Shute and sacked the house. The Bonvilles were prominent Yorkists, and the conflict between the two families became a civil war within a civil war. Baron Bonville’s son and grandson were both killed at the Battle of Wakefield in 1460, leaving him the last male of the line. His own fate came the following year at the Second Battle of St Albans, where he had been protecting the captive King Henry VI. Despite assurances of safety, he was executed after pressure from the Earl of Devon, Thomas Courtenay.
The Bonville estates, including Wiscombe, passed to Baron Bonville’s great‑granddaughter, Cecily Bonville, then a child. Through her marriage to Thomas Grey, Marquess of Dorset, the lands entered the Grey family. Their son was Henry Grey, Duke of Suffolk, father of Lady Jane Grey. His execution after Wyatt’s Rebellion saw the estate confiscated and transferred to the Petre family, ending the Bonvilles’ long association with Wiscombe and Shute.
