Queer Places:
Bicton Park Botanical Gardens, Bicton, East Budleigh Salterton, Budleigh Salterton EX9 7BJ, United Kingdom
St. Giles in the Wood Parish Church
St Giles in the Wood, Torridge District, Devon, England
Louisa
Barbara Trefusis, Lady Rolle (December 29, 1795 - November 20, 1885) was the first woman
Governor of Bridewell and Bethlem Royal Hospitals in 1841. She is believed to
have been the original of Thackeray's "Lady Kew". Bicton Gardens in Devon on
the south coast of England, were inspired by Lady Louisa Rolle who admired Le
Notre's work on Versailles and Vaux-le-Vicomte—a formal style known as jardin
a la francaise. In recognition of Rolle's vision for the garden, her marble
bust decorates the Orangery of Bicton. The conservatory was foregrounded as a
public haven and a place for contemplation, health and casual social
encounters.
Hon. Louisa Trefusis was the daughter of Robert George William Trefusis,
17th Baron Clinton (1764–1797), and Albertina Marianne Gaulis. Her siblings are Robert
Cotton St John Trefusis, 18th Baron Clinton; Hon. Anne Matilda Trefusis;
Charles Rodolph Trefusis, 19th Baron Clinton (the 19th Baron Clinton son,
Colonel Hon. John Schomberg Trefusis is the father of Denys Robert Trefusis (1890–1929) who married Violet Keppel); George Rolle Walpole
Trefusis; Colonel Robert Cotton St. John, 18th Lord Clinton Trefusis; Captain
Hon. George Rolle Walpole Trefusis; Hon. Anne Matilda Trefusis e Hon. Caroline
Trefusis.
On 24 September 1822 at Huish,[1] Devon,
the seat of Lord Clinton, the 28-year-old Louisa Trefusis married a 72 years
old very distant cousin, John Rolle, 1st Baron Rolle (1750–1842),
a British peer who served as a Member of Parliament in general support
of William Pitt the Younger and was later an active member of the House of
Lords.
WWhilst Rolle himself was descended from George Rolle (died 1573), of
Marhayes in the parish of Week St Mary in Cornwall, the second son of the
founder of the family, George Rolle of Stevenstone (died 1552), MP
for Barnstaple, Louisa was descended from the latter's fourth son Henry Rolle,
who had married Margaret Yeo, the heiress of Heanton
Satchville in Petrockstowe parish, Devon. Henry Rolle's great-grandson Robert
Rolle (died 1660), MP, of Heanton Satchville, had married Lady Arabella
Clinton, one of the two co-heiresses of their nephew Edward Clinton, 5th Earl
of Lincoln and 13th Baron Clinton (died 1692). On the extinction of the senior
line of the Rolle-Clinton union on the death of George Walpole, 3rd Earl of
Orford and 16th Baron Clinton, their heir became the descendants of their
daughter Bridget Rolle (1648–1721) who had married in 1672 Francis Trefusis of
the manor of Trefusis in Cornwall. Louisa Trefusis, the second wife of Lord
Rolle, was fifth in descent from Francis Trefusis and Bridget Rolle, being the
daughter of Robert George William Trefusis, 17th Baron Clinton, of Trefusis,
Cornwall.
Rolle's second marriage also produced no children. It had been thought that
his heir presumptive was his next-of-kin, Rev. John Moore-Stevens
(1784–1865), Archdeacon of Exeter, younger brother of Thomas Moore-Stevens
(1782–1832), JP, of Cross, Little Torrington, appointed by Lord Rolle in 1822
as vicar of Otterton, a manor adjoining Bicton purchased by Rolle's father
Denys Rolle (died 1797).[nb
11] Rev. Moore-Stevens's grandmother was Christiana Maria Rolle
(1710–1780), Lord Rolle's aunt, who had married Henry Stevens (1689–1748) of
Cross. He married Anne Eleanor Roberts, daughter of Rev. William Roberts,
fellow and vice-provost of Eton College. An inscribed white marble tablet
exists to the memory of his wife and himself in Exeter Cathedral.[nb
12] His son was John Moore-Stevens (born 1818), JP, DL, MP for North
Devon, High Sheriff of Devon 1870,[34] who
rebuilt Winscott House, Peters Marland, in 1865. Lord Rolle however had
decided to appoint as his heir Louisa's younger nephew, the six-year-old
Hon. Mark George Kerr Trefusis (1836–1907), the younger brother of Charles
Trefusis (1834–1904) 20th Baron Clinton. Whether his marriage to Louisa had
been by chance or dynastic design, in fact the Trefusis Barons Clinton would
have had an excellent claim to be his closest kin and legal heirs. Thus Rolle
had followed his family's ancient practice of keeping the estates "in the
family". His will required his young heir to change his name to Rolle, which
he duly performed, and to adopt the Rolle arms in lieu of those of Trefusis.
However, his design to revive the Rolle family was ultimately unsuccessful
as Mark Rolle (1835–1907) produced only two daughters and no son, and the
Rolle inheritance passed to his male heir, his nephew, Charles John Robert
Trefusis (1863–1957), 21st Baron Clinton. The Trefusis family had several
generations before inherited the estates of the Rolle family of Heanton
Satchville, Petrockstowe, the most junior line of the family descended from
the patriarch George Rolle (died 1552), and thus added to those large
landholdings the huge Stevenstone and Bicton estates. However, liquid funds
were not available to meet the large death duties, and much of the Stevenstone
estate was sold to meet the tax liability.
Lady Louisa Rolle died 20 Nov 1885 in Saint Giles in the Wood, Devon,
England. A marble bust of Louisa exists in the Orangery at Bicton House.
Louisa and Rolle shared a love of gardening and created the grand landscaped
garden at Bicton, now open to the public as Bicton Park Botanical Gardens. An
American traveller Elihu Burritt visited Bicton in 1864 and described her
hostess in terms of great praise: "This lady is a remarkable woman, without
equal or like in England...she is a female rival of Alexander the Great. The
world that the Grecian conqueror subjugated was a small affair in space
compared with the two hemispheres which this English lady has taken by the
hair of the head and bound to her chair of state. It seems to have been her
ambition for nearly half a century to do what was never done before by man or
woman in filling her great park and gardens with a collection of trees and
shrubs that should be to them what the British Museum is to the relics of
antiquity and the literature of all ages".”
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