The Portledge Centuries
The Coffins of Alwington held one estate in Devon for centuries, from the reign of Henry II until Portledge was sold in 1998. This is the history of the house and the family.
The Coffins of Alwington are set out in Vivian’s Visitations of the County of Devon(“Coffin of Porthledge,” p. 208+), from a Richard Coffin in the reign of Henry II (1154-1189). The archive does not claim that John descends from them. Tristram Coffin, who sailed for New England in 1642, was the son of Peter Coffin of Brixton, near Plymouth, as Peter’s will of 1627 shows; no record names Peter’s parents, and the pedigrees that join the Brixton Coffins to Portledge are family tradition. See The Coffins of Nantucket for Tristram and his descendants.
Portledge
Portledge House, Alwington, Devon, overlooking the Bristol Channel.
Portledge Manor sits in the parish of Alwington, Devon, England. The estate overlooks the Bristol Channel. The Coffin family held this land through the medieval centuries, documented in Vivian’s Visitations of Devon back to the 1100s, before a Coffin ever crossed the Atlantic.
The family consolidated its position in Devon across the reigns of the Plantagenet kings. Records name Sir Richard Coffin under Henry II (1154-1189), Sir Elias Coffin under King John (1199-1216), and Sir Jeffrey Coffin and Combe Coffin under Henry III (1216-1272). The manor at Alwington passed from father to son.
Vivian’s pedigree carries the family at Alwington through the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries: Richard Coffyn about 1280, then Johns and Davids, a John who married Thomasin Hartley in 1406, and a William who married Margaret Giffard and died in 1486. A Richard Coffyn who married Alice Gambon in 1462 is the first of the family described at Portledge, the manor house that became the seat of the Devon Coffins.
Through the catastrophes of the fourteenth century, the Great Famine, the Black Death, the Peasants’ Revolt, the Hundred Years War, the Coffins held Alwington. The estate survived because the land survived. Devon was far enough from London to avoid the worst political turmoil, close enough to the sea to sustain itself.
In the Tudor century the Coffins of Portledge married into the leading families of the South West: a Richard Coffyn married Wilmont Chudleigh in 1510, and a Peter Coffin married Mary Boscawen, of a powerful Cornish family, in 1560.
What the Coffins Lived Through
1154-1189. Reign of Henry II. The Coffins are documented at Alwington (Vivian's Visitations).
1215. Magna Carta signed.
1337-1453. Hundred Years War with France.
1348. Black Death reaches Devon. Half the population dies.
1455-1487. Wars of the Roses.
1509-1547. Henry VIII. Sir William Coffin serves as Master of the Horse.
1534. English Reformation. Break with Rome.
1588. Spanish Armada defeated.
1607. Jamestown founded.
1766. The senior male line at Portledge ends; the estate passes through the female line.
1998. Portledge is sold out of the family.
The Coat of Arms
The Coffin coat of arms dates from the family’s centuries at Portledge and reflects their long tenure as Devon gentry. The arms were borne by the Coffins of Portledge, Alwington, and their cadet branches across southwestern England.
Sir William Coffin, kinsman to the Portledge line, served as Sheriff of Devonshire under Henry VIII and Master of the Horse for Queen Anne Boleyn’s coronation, one of only 18 men who accompanied the King to a tournament in France. When Sir William died, he left his prize hawks and horses to the King himself.
The Coffins of Brixton
The senior line held Portledge and Alwington in unbroken male succession until 1766 (John Coffin, d. 1622, then Richard Coffin, 1623-1700, Sheriff of Devon). Other Coffins lived at Brixton, near Plymouth in South Devon. Peter Coffin of Brixton made his will on 21 December 1627, naming his wife Joan and his “son and heir” Tristram, and the will was proved on 13 March 1627/8. Tristram Coffin left Brixton for New England in 1642 and in 1659 led the purchase of Nantucket.
Compiled pedigrees make the Brixton Coffins a branch of the Portledge family, with Peter’s father a Nicholas Coffin and his grandfather the Peter Coffin who married Mary Boscawen. No record names Peter’s parents; his will names a brother Nicholas, not a father. The archive treats the link as family tradition and does not count the Coffins of Alwington among John’s ancestors.
Portledge Today
Portledge House still stands in Alwington, Devon. It is now a private estate. The building visible today dates primarily from later centuries but occupies the same site the Coffin family held for over 500 years.
Traditional claims of pre-Conquest Coffin origins, including the Sir Richard Coffin at Hastings tradition and the family’s Norman name and French holdings, are kept in the archive Basement, with the pedigree that joins the Brixton Coffins to Portledge.
Centuries at one estate.