Gidleigh Castle is in the small village of Gidleigh on the edge of Dartmoor some 3 km to the north-west of the town of Chagford, Devon. This was a fortified manor house built by William de Prouz around 1324. It is now a ruined keep tower with two storeys, an undercroft and a first floor hall.
-- Gidleigh Castle
THIS fragment of an old Norman castle lies on the X.E. confines of Dartmoor, near Chagford. In the time of William I. the lands were possessed by a family named Prouse or Prowse, by ancient grants from the Crown ; and here they had their castle. Adjoining is an extensive walled enclosure of moorland, three sides of it having a stone wall, while the remaining side is protected by a fine gorge of the river Teign, which rises up in this district. The Prouses became extinct in the reign of Edward II., and Gidleigh Castle and manor passed with its heiress to Mules, and from that family in the same way to Damerell. William Damerell of Gidleigh gave the estate to his daughter, wife to Walter Coade of Morval in Cornwall, with whose descendants it long continued. In later years the place belonged to an ancient family taking their name from the property; one Bartholomew Gidleigh being lord of the manor in 1772, and by marriage with this family the possessor at the time at Polwhele (1797) was one Ridley; after that time there was a Chancery suit respecting the property, followed by a sale.
THE Castles of England - Their Story And Structure
by Sir James D. Mackenzie, 1896 --
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