THE Earl of Iddesleigh, who died recently, had a great affection for the place where he took his name yet curiously he never lived there.
Born in 1932, Stafford Henry Northcote inherited around 2,000 acres of land in the village but his main estate was near Exeter.
He was a frequent visitor to Iddesleigh and in the 2000 Millennium Year presented commemoration cups to the children of the parish.
Local resident Peter Banbury, who takes an active interest in local history, met the Earl on several occasions.
He said: ?Lord Iddesleigh, as we called him, was a very affable man ? not at all pompous and he liked coming here. He had a great affection for Iddesleigh.
?The family owned land for several hundreds of years but it was all sold off just after the first world war.?
The village hall is built on land given by the Northcote family which was formerly the site of the village primary school before it was closed in the 1950s.
Stafford Iddesleigh overcame serious illness to play an important role in public life. He was commissioned in the Irish Guards in 1950 and stood guard at the lying-in-state of King George VI.
Shortly afterwards he was invalided out of the army with pulmonary tuberculosis which meant virtual isolation in a TB sanatorium ? in his case on Dartmoor.
His father ? the third Earl and tenth baronet ? took an active part in the House of Lords and his great grandfather was Chancellor of the Exchequer during the premiership of Benjamin Disraeli and was created an Earl in 1885.
Stafford Iddesleigh became a successful businessman and during his life held the positions of chairman and president of the Devon branch of the Country Landowners? Association and was on the boards of well known companies in the field of radio and television.
He took his seat in the House of Lords where he involved himself in West Country affairs and agriculture.
He retired from his post as Vice-Lord Lieutenant of Devon in 2002 on reaching the age of 70.
The Earl of Iddesleigh title will now fall to his son, John Northcote.