Over in West Devon, the village of Horrabridge in the Dartmoor National Park, four miles south of Tavistock, grew up around an ancient crossing over the fast-flowing River Walkham, a famous salmon river, its 15th-century bridge one of the oldest in Devon.

In the late 1800s/early 1900s, the south wing of the original Elizabethan building was rebuilt after ‘three successive fires’ destroyed ‘the hall and one wing’.

In the late 1800s, three sisters sold the 400-acre Sortridge estate to a Plymouth stockbroker who immediately sold it again in lots, thereby doubling his money.

The manor and 140 acres of land were bought by Col Marwood Tucker, whose widow sold the property to George Porter Rogers in 1955. In November 1961, Mr Rogers sold the manor with three acres of grounds for £5,500 to Cmdr C. R. Smythe, who sold it in turn to Cmdr Stubley.

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