Page:Devon and Cornwall Queries Vol 9 1917.djvu/45

Devon and Cornwall Notes and Queries. 27 B. Hyde, m.a., who has very kindly shewn me these and other parochial and local documents of interest. I am indebted to Mrs. Hole, now of " Parke View," for the information that early in the nineteenth century the estate of " Parke " in Bovey Tracy was acquired by purchase by Mr. Robert Hole, of Stickweek (born 1742), whose son, Mr. William Hole (born 1799) had resided but a short time in the old house when it was suddenly discovered to be unsafe, and he therefore pulled it down and built the present house in or shortly before 1825, and lived and died there. He was succeeded by his son, Mr. William Robert Hole (the late husband of my informant), whose son, Mr. William Gerard Hole, is the present ov^Tier. The modern building stands a little farther back than its predecessor, but is approached through the same fine avenue of beeches. The oak flooring of its hall was brought from Crownley, another old family place. It would seem probable that the Hole family of Parke were connected with that of Hole of North Tawton (into which the sister-in-law of George Hunt of Parke married). From sketches made by a sister of Mr. William Hole of the old mansion of Parke (supposed to have been built in the fourteenth century) shortly before its demolition, it appears to have been a large, irregular place, comprising a two and a half story gabled main block, with three or more wings, having one large entrance-door reached by a flight of half-a-dozen stone steps in the outer court, and another entrance in an inner court divided off from the other by high walls, with a tall narrow gate-house in one corner. This gate-house had an arched and mullioned window above a very wide, oak, nail-studded door pierced by a wicket, stone seats running along the internal side- walls and the date 1620 cut in its pavement. All the doors referred to were "like church-doors," and had pointed heads of the form known as a chevron in heraldry. ^..^^ (>' '59' • Ethel Lega-Weekes. 20. Williams Family of Falmouth. — Biographical information is wanted regarding Theophilus Richard Williams, son of John WilUams and his wife Margaret nee Daubuz, who was born in Falmouth in 1751, lived there all