Orleigh Court is a late medieval

Late Middle Ages

The Late Middle Ages was the period of European history generally comprising the 14th to the 16th century . The Late Middle Ages followed the High Middle Ages and preceded the onset of the early modern era ....

 house in Buckland Brewer

Buckland Brewer

Buckland Brewer is a village and civil parish in the Torridge district of Devon, England, about 5 miles south of Bideford. Historically the parish formed part of Shebbear Hundred. According to the 2001 census it had a population of 777.-History:...

 4 miles to the south west of Bideford

Bideford

Bideford is a small port town on the estuary of the River Torridge in north Devon, south-west England. It is also the main town of the Torridge local government district.-History:...

, Devon

Devon

Devon is a large county in southwestern England. The county is sometimes referred to as Devonshire, although the term is rarely used inside the county itself as the county has never been officially "shired", it often indicates a traditional or historical context.The county shares borders with...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

.

It is a two storeyed building constructed from local slate

Slate

Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. The result is a foliated rock in which the foliation may not correspond to the original sedimentary layering...

 stone. It has a hall 30' by 20' The building was substantially altered in the 1870s and redeveloped for multiple occupancy in the 1980s.

Ownership

The Dennis family held the local manor and were the original builders. However in 1684 it became the property of John Davie

John Davie

John Davie was a merchant based in Bideford, Devon, England.John Davie was the son of John Davie and Marie Sutton who married in 1638...

 a local Bideford merchant.

At one time John Hanning Speke

John Hanning Speke

John Hanning Speke was an officer in the British Indian Army who made three exploratory expeditions to Africa and who is most associated with the search for the source of the Nile.-Life:...

 lived at Orleigh Court.

Sources