“2 sonne”378 “This Christopher is said to have been ancestor of the Holcombes of Pembrokeshire in Wales”378,442
‘For 500 years the Holcombe’s primary family home was Hull Manor House near Branscombe, Devonshire. Over many generations they acquired most of the land along the south coast of Devon situated between Branscombe and Lyme Regis. The first identifiable ancestor was Symon, a Saxon bowman who held lands in east Devonshire but were lost in 1066 to the invading Normans. About 20 years later he was on the road to recovery. Some former Wessex crown lands which were confiscated by William the Conqueror were awarded to Symon, which included the site upon which the Hull manor house was built. Through successive marriages the Holcombes were descended from the early Courtenay and de Revieres Earls of Devon, and also from Edward I Plantagenet. The Devonshire lands Hull and Down Ralph were sold in 1600. Christopher Holcombe, who inherited Hull and Downe Ralph from his grandfather Ellis Holcombe, had already inherited an estate at Ashton in Cornwall through his mother, and he elected to stay on there when his grandfather died. Christopher’s son William, father of the Virginia William, grew up at Ashton, worked for awhile in Shropshire, married a Bush Estate heir in Pembroke, Wales, and late in his life was mayor of the town of Pembroke.’641