Page:Devon and Cornwall Queries Vol 9 1917.djvu/144

no Devon and Cornwall Notes and Queries. he was ignorant of the dedication saint. Certainly the church of Sparsholt in Berks was the Church of the Holy Rood and the tradition in 1876 was still so strong that the feast was always observed on the Sunday next following Holy Rood finding day, the 3rd of May old style, now the 13th May. Yet in ecclesiastical proceedings in the 14th century it was spoken of as the Church of St. Mary. We also meet with the Church of the Holy Cross at Crediton of the canons of St. Mary or of St. Gregory which has given rise to Crediton Church being called by Leland the Church of St. Gregory, {Devon &> Cornwall Notes & Queries, ix., Appen. 75), and in older documents the Church of St. INIary. And stranger still we find in grants of property, Tor Abbey sometimes described as the Church of St. Saviour and at other times as the Church of the Holy Trinity (Oliver, Mon., 186,) shewing that scribes were not very particular as to the saint placed in charge. There seems to have been a fashion in these things. Before the Reformation to describe a church as the Church of St. Mary was equivalent to dubbing a man esquire. In Hanoverian times the saints and especially St. Mary were taboo. We can therefore readily understand how both rector and patron in 1787 preferred, even if they knew better, to speak of Teign- grace Church as the Church of the Holy Trinity. iju. r>.i7^. Oswald J. Reichel. 94. Newnham. — The members of the Devonshire Associa- tion, at their recent meeting at Plymouth, made an afternoon excursion to Plympton Castle, Newnham Park (where they were kindly entertained by Major and Mrs. Strode) and old Newnham. At Newnham Park, divers opinions were expressed as to the date of the building. Lysons states it was built upon the adjoining manor of Loughtor about 1700, being raised on the foundations (or rather on the first floor level) of Loughtor, which now forms the basement of the existing house. Loughtor appears to have been built by Philip Courtenay, c. 1514, who was buried in Plympton St. Mary Church. It came to the Strodes by marriage of an heiress of Courtenay. Kelly's Devon states " Old Newnham, the ancestral seat of the Strode family was the residence of Simon de Plympton in the time of Edward I., and a grandson of his