The owners of The Grange were Thomas
Drewe (1584-1651) and his wife, Elizabeth Moore Drewe
(1585-1635). They had eleven children, of whom nine lived to at least early
adulthood. They would have had numerous servants, who would have done the
cleaning, cooking, repairs, sewing, and other practical tasks, as well as
being governesses and nurses to the children, waiting on the family at the
table, and assisting them in dressing and grooming themselves.
Drewe was prominent locally, serving in 1634 as the High Sheriff of Devon
(the sheriff was the county tax collector, which was a very lucrative position).
The lands surrounding the house, which would have been used for farming under
lease to tenant farmers, consisted of 3,668 acres, growing wheat and other
food crops, and raising livestock. The Grange was in a very rural setting
of villages and fields. The river Tale, a tributary of the Otter River, flows
through the property on the way to the English Channel, and the house overlooks
a ridge called the Blackdown Hills.
