Ugbrooke

Ugbrooke House is a stately home in the parish of Chudleigh, Devon, England, situated in a valley between Exeter and Newton Abbot. The home of the Clifford family, the house and grounds are available for guided tours in summer and as an event venue. History It dates back over 900 years, having featured in the Domesday Book of 1086. Before the Reformation the land belonged to the Church and the house was occupied by Precentors to the Bishop of Exeter. The property came into the possession the Courtenays of Powderham Castle. In 1604 it passed to Thomas Clifford, grandson of the widow of Piers Courtnay. It has been the seat of the Clifford family for over four hundred years, and the owners have held the title Baron Clifford of Chudleigh since 1672. The house, now a Grade I listed building, was remodelled by Robert Adam, while the grounds were redesigned by Capability Brown in 1761. The grounds featured what were possibly the earliest plantings of the European White Elm, Ulmus laevis, in the UK. The gardens are now Grade II* listed in the National Register of Historic Parks and Gardens. On 14 June 1796 Thomas Weld of Lulworth Castle, a member of an old recusant family, married, at Ugbrooke, Lucy Bridget Clifford, granddaughter of the 3rd Baron Clifford of Chudleigh. On the death of his wife (1815) and the marriage of his only daughter to the 7th Baron Clifford of Chudleigh (1818), with no further family responsibilities he became a priest (1821), and kept a poor orphanage in London. Asked for as Bishop of Upper Canada, he was consecrated in 1826 at St Edmund's College, Ware, but his daughter's failing health delayed his departure for Canada, and he resigned his vicariate. In 1830, while visiting Rome, he was raised to the cardinalate.