d firm affections
achieve the happiness of kissing your fairest hands and you shall
thereby engage at present and in future

'Your most honouring

'friende and servant,

'WILL WALROND.

'_Anderdon this 27th of October, 1659._'

[Footnote 11: Portcullised.]

Pynes stands in the Exe Valley, just within three miles of Exeter
Cathedral. It is of red brick with white dressings, and has many high
narrow windows. A view has been put forward that the politics of country
gentlemen in the early part of the eighteenth century may always be
traced by their trees; those who were in favour of William III set
lime-avenues, while Jacobites planted Scotch firs. There is a tradition
in the family that, while the Northcotes were for the Prince of Orange,
the Staffords were for King James, but it seems quite as likely that
political significance was not always the chief point in planting trees.
In any case, there are many Scotch firs, and a lime-avenue (peculiarly
in keeping with the style of the house) is shown by prints to have led
far over the hill to Upton Pyne, but is now, alas! represented only by
one or two aged survivors.

The manor belonged to the family of Pyne in the reign of Henry I, and
after many years was brought by an heiress to the Larders. From this
family, after another interval, it passed by marriage to the
Coplestones, of whom it was bought by Hugh Stafford.

The Staffords, or, as the name originally was, Stowfords, migrated from
Stowford in Dolton near Torrington, soon after the Restoration. Hugh
Stafford, born in 1674, was very keenly interested in the subject of
apple-growing and cider. He wrote a 'Dissertation' on the subject, and
especially on a certain apple called the Royal Wilding, from which it
had just been discovered (about 1710) a very superior kind of cider
could be produced. Unfortunately, Lord Bute's cider-tax so greatly
discouraged the manufacture that after it had been imposed farmers only
made enough for their own use and their labourers', and were not very
critical as to the quality. In consequence, the choicest kinds of fruit
were neglected, and both the Royal Wilding and the White Sour of the
South Hams, another much-prized apple, are no longer to be found.

The daughter and heiress of Mr Stafford married her neighbour, Sir Henry
Northcote. The Northcotes have been settled in Devonshire since the
reign of Henry I, when Galfridus de Northcote held the lands of
N