Kitley Heritage - Bastard quartering Pollexfen impaling Woollcombe

23/ Or a chevron azure Quartering 1 & 4 Argent a lion rampant gules 2 & 3 Azure Impaling Argent three bars gules – Bastard quartering Pollexfen impaling Woollcombe

William Pollexfen Bastard, third son of Edmund P Bastard (q.v. shield 27), born 12th Jan 1832, became Lord of the Manor of Yealmpton after the deaths of his brothers, and as they also died without leaving any heirs (q.v. shields 29 & 27), the estate passed eventually to his own son William Edmund Pollexfen Bastard (q.v. shield 24). This shield is in fact placed out of the chronological sequence in the display, for it should certainly be expected after that which records his father’s marriage (q.v. shield 27) and also, strictly speaking, after that of his elder brother (q.v. shield 29).

Be that as it may, here it is, the impalement recording the marriage, in Jan 1859, of William P Bastard to Caroline, daughter of Rear Admiral Woollcombe of Hemerdon. He, William P Bastard, was curate of Brixton 1862-66, rector of Lezant in Cornwall 1866-96, and was also for a time the rector at St Peter’s, Buckland in the Moor. He also took up semi-permanent residence at Buckland Court (as had his brothers), and he is in fact the only Bastard Lord of the Manor to have been buried at Buckland – buried with him there are his wife and six of his eight daughters, and also Major Gerald M Conran of the Duke of Cornwall Light Infantry, who had married his eldest daughter, Jane Frances Bastard.

This fact might explain the absence of any further Bastard impalements in the main hall at Kitley, save for that of his son (q.v. shield 24), for although the principal seat remained at Kitley,during the latter half of the nineteenth century Buckland Court probably became the main family residence – the Bastards had owned that Manor since 1614. That this is so is suggested by documentary evidence, and also by a subtle, but very important, change to the family entry in later volumes of Burke’s Landed Gentry, which had hitherto recorded their details under the heading of “Bastard of Kitley”. From henceforth this became “Bastard of Kitley & Buckland Court”.

Given these considerations, it is also likely that it was the Rev William P Bastard who commissioned the heraldic display in the main hall at Kitley – it seems evident that the shields were all painted at the same time, for the style of each is the same – and perhaps they were emplaced during renovations which are known to have taken place at Kitley in the late Victorian times.

This suggestion also then serves to explain the positioning of this shield relative to the others, the arms of the Lord of Manor of the time taking an almost central position above the great fireplace. All of the shields to the left of this move towards it, showing the main lines, in particular those of the Pollexfens and Poulletts, the most important families into which the Bastards married in the “modern” era. Immediately to the right of the fireplace are the arms of William P Bastard’s father and elder brother, whilst those further around to this side of the hall trace the very early ancestry of some of the lines of descent, of which more anon. Alongside his own shield are the arms depicting the marriage of his son. The sinister side of the multiple arms in shield 25, immediately adjacent, can then be seen to be recording the ancestry of the Reverend himself, the Rodney line into which his father married. The Plantagenet arms are displayed directly opposite.