Combe House is steeped in history and romance. Below is a potted summary of this historic hotel and the village in which it lies. If you love history and want to read a more detailed account, click here.

The idyllic cob and thatch Devon village of Gittisham harks back to the Saxon occupation of the valley – after the Romans had cut the famous Fosse Way. At the time of the Norman conquest, Combe House belonged to a certain Odo – as was mentioned in the Domesday book. Soon afterwards it came into the possession of the De Lowmans' and by the 13th century had passed into the Willington family. However they were not long at Combe for, along with many other barons of the time, the Willingtons took arms against King Edward and were killed in 1324.

Four generations later Combe was passed to the Beaumonts by marriage.

The present Combe is a gracious manor built in the reign of Queen Elizabeth 1st by Humphrey Beaumont who died in 1572 but not before transforming the Medieval Hall–House into the Elizabethan character that we see today. The property was bought by the very wealthy Nicholas Putt in 1614 who became Sherriff of Devon in the same year. He was an active royalist and it was not long before Cromwell's soldiers were sent to arrest him – luckily for him he died on the way to London! The Putts held Combe for 232 years and were responsible for much of the building, grounds and beech walks that one sees today.

Combe and Gittisham then passed on to the Marker family who still own and live on the 3,500 acre Estate.

The first written reference to the village of Gittisham is in the Domesday book, where it is first spelt 'Gidesham'. The Bronze age people came from far and wide to bury their dead on Gittisham Hill, one of the largest Bronze age burial areas in Devon.

Many of the paintings at Combe House are by Alfred Leyman, 1856 – 1933

Alfred Leyman was born in Summerland Street in the parish of St.Sidwell in Exeter, on 27th September 1856.  The son of John Francis Leyman, a seaman in the Merchant Service.

He moved to Honiton circa 1888, and was an artist of considerable merit.  He was Art Master at Allhallows School from 1893-1933, and travelled widely in Devon, in search of suitable subjects for his work.  Specialising in landscapes and ancient buildings, with the occasional river or coastal scene.  He seldom left Devon, with the exception of a few paintings depicting West Dorset and West Somerset.

One of Leyman’s former pupils had this to say about the artist,”He was a smallish man, and a very shy one, I feel now that he had no real teaching ability and that he would have been happier alone with his easel, and away from the gathering of rumbustious boys, painting the Devon Countryside that he loved so much”.