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Tracy Park is one of the most beautiful country estates in the Bath and Bristol area. The Park, mentioned in the Doomsday Book, extends to over 240 acres and derives its name from John de Tracy, who purchased the estate in 1246 from Thomas de Deinton. However, the early history takes us back to 11th century Bayeux (in Normandy), before the Norman invasion.
The Normans
William de Tracy (1040-1110) was born near Bayeux in Normandy but settled in Barnstaple, Devon after the Norman Conquest. He was the main benefactor of Barnstaple Priory and gave his name to the town of Bovey Tracey. Sir William’s tomb can still be found in Mortehoe Church, near Ilfracombe. He founded a family dynasty that carried significant influence. His wife was called Rohesia (b1044) and their daughter, Gieva de Tracy (b1068) married Henry I ‘Beauclerc’, King of England (1068-1135).
Their son, William I de Tracy (b1097) and his wife, (b1101) had a daughter, Grace, who married John de Sudeley of Sudeley Castle in Gloucestershire (see Knights Templar below). Famously, at the behest of Henry II, Sir William de Tracy III (d1192) was one of the four knights who murdered Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1170. He fled to Scotland but settled in York, the home town of Henry I.
The Knights Templar
Bristol has strong Masonic links. For example, the principle church is Temple Church and the main railway station is called Temple Station. It was the Normans though who founded the Knights Templar, from which the Masonic movement and the Freemasons evolved. The de Tracy’s were unequivocally of Norman extraction and around the manor house there are many fine examples of Masonic symbolism. So how did this come about?
Sir William de Tracy’s half brother, Ralph de Sudeley, commanded the Knights Templar in Palestine during the 1180’s. They both went on the very First Crusade. Ralph is reputed to have discovered the famous Hardwycke chest of gold. As he was the younger son, he would not have inherited Sudeley Castle but came back from Palestine very rich indeed. He bought an estate in Warwickshire and the village still bears the name Temple Hardwyke. Sir William also acquired great wealth at this time, probably from the Hardwyke gold too and it was this wealth, passed down to his grandson John de Tracy, that permitted the purchase of Tracy Park estate in the mid 13th century.
Motto
The carved motto over the front door reads ‘In hoc signo vinces’. It is the Latin rendering of a Greek phrase, going back to the 4th century at the time of Emperor Constantine, still visible in the Vatican after all this time. It was adopted by the Knights Templar with a ribbon and passion cross, just like the carving on the front of our manor house. The various translations are:
• With this as your standard you shall have victory
• By this sign thou shalt conquer
• In this sign you shall conquer
Is it a coincidence that Henry I came from York, William de Tracy fled to York after Becket’s assassination and that the York Rite branch of the Masons have as their motto ‘In hoc signo vinces?’ We can only presume to guess after all this time.
The Tudors
The Manor remained in the Tracy family for 300 years and was then sold in the reign of Elizabeth I to Arthur Player. He was bailiff to Sir William Wintall, Lord of Dyrham a keen contender for the commercial advantage during the re-building of the British fleet who were to set sail and defeat the Spanish Armada in 1586. Many long days and nights were spent in Tracy Park negotiating with rich land owners and members of the nobility to raise enough money in order that the British Fleet was built.
The Stuarts
In the summer of 1643 Royalist forces concentrated for a major assault on the Parliamentarian position in the West Country. A contingent of 3000 foot, 300 dragoons and 500 horse under Lord Hopton was joined at Chard on 4th June by 1000 foot and 1500 horse under Prince Maurice and the Marquess of Hertford. The presence of three officers whose rank justified independent command raised the thorny question of who should actually control the operation of the army. The problem appears to have been solved by allowing Hertford to command in name, while Hopton commanded in the field and Maurice concentrated his attention on the horse. The Royalists were opposed by Sir William Waller whose army of approximately equal numbers (but stronger in cavalry) was deployed near Bath.
After some preliminary skirmishing the Royalists approached Lansdown Hill to the north of Bath (on the edge of our estate) on 4th July. Waller dispatched 1000 cavalry to harry the enemy flank and rear in the valley between Lansdown and Freezing Hills. This cavalry assault was roughly handled and Hopton’s Cornish infantry clamoured to be allowed to make (what appeared to be) a suicidal assault on the main Parliamentarian position.
Hopton ordered flanking attacks by parties of musketeers while the main assault was delivered in the centre along the road which wound its way to the summit. The royalist horses were halted by a storm of fire which rained down on them from above just next to the 10th hole on the Cromwell Course, but Sir Bevil Grenville’s Cornish pike men struggled to the crest, where they held their ground in the face of Waller’s cavalry. The Parliamentarian troops abandoned their field works and retreated to the protection of a stone wall 400 yards along the summit. Parliamentarians and Royalists were now near exhaustion. Ammunition was short and a high proportion of Royalist officers had fallen in the assault. Both sides were anxious to maintain their position rather than undertake new attacks and the fighting petered out in an exchange of musketry. Shortly after midnight Waller withdrew to Bath and at dawn the Royalists retired to Marshfield after being fed and watered over a hearty meal at Tracy Park.
The Battle of Lansdown Hill, although inconclusive, inflicted severe casualties on the Royalists and although they eventually overwhelmed Waller’s position the victory came with sadness as Sir Beville Grenville, whose monument overlooks Tracy Park, was killed in the thick of the fighting.
The House
Evidence would suggest that the existing Jacobean house replaced an earlier structure known as Well House which comprised of ‘a basement cellar, hall, kitchen; a first floor with a hall chamber, kitchen chamber and a little chamber with, on the floor above, two cocklofts for storing cheese’. There is also an early reference to the White House and barns. After the Civil War, Tracy Park changed hands a number of times but always remained the property of merchants in Bristol. Robert Bush, a descendant of the Chaplain to Henry VIII left the house in 1798 to his nephew. The present appearance of the house was largely as created by Robert Bush Junior in 1808, although later extensions exist to the back of the mansion.
On October 3rd 1820 Bush sold the house to Sir William Gabriel Davy Knight, Commander of the Guelphic Order of Hanover. During his ownership, the house was the inspiration for Birtwick Park in the book ‘Black Beauty’, written by Anna Sewell (who lived nearby) and published in 1877.
The house remained the property of this family until early in the 20th Century when William James Davy, grandson of Sir William, was killed in action in France. Sir William’s great grand-daughter Helen, then sold the house in March 1926, to Charles Samuel Clarke. The Clarke family lived in the house until 1973 when it was purchased at auction and then developed into a Golf and Country Club. Since then it has been owned by various organisations, most recently David and Ian Knipe who sold The Gloucestershire (as it was then known), to TP Resort Limited in March 2005, who are developing the property into a boutique hotel and golf resort.