Buckland Abbey, whose buildings are survivals of a Cistercian abbey founded by Amicia de Clare, Countess of Devon in 1278, and dissolved by Henry VIII in 1539, was the home, successively, of two great English naval heroes: Sir Richard Grenville (1542–1591) and Sir Francs Drake (c.1540–1596). The last Drake descendant to live there was Captain Richard Owen-Tapps-Gervis-Meyrick (1892–1948) who sold the Abbey in 1948, after it had been gutted by fire in 1938. Partly administered by the Plymouth Museums and Art Gallery, most of the pictures are on loan, along with Drake’s Drum and the Drake Cup. A few, however, have come to the National Trust subsequently, thanks to a provision in the will of Lady Samuel, a small, fine collection of Dutch pictures of the Golden Age – a fragment of the much larger collection of her husband, Sir Harold Samuel, Lord Samuel of Wych Cross, the bulk of which was left to the City of London and adorns the Mansion House.
Knighting the Captains on Board the Ark RoyalBernard Finnigan Gribble (1872–1962)
National Trust, Buckland Abbey
Edward VI (1537–1553), as a Youth British (English) School (attributed to)
National Trust, Buckland Abbey
Dutch Shipping in a Heavy Swell with a Small Hoeker under a Half-Lowered Mainsail, and with a School of Porpoises in the ForegroundWillem van de Velde II (1633–1707)
National Trust, Buckland Abbey
Peasants DancingDavid Teniers II (1610–1690)
National Trust, Buckland Abbey
Portrait of an Unknown Elizabethan Lady, Aged 36 British (English) School
National Trust, Buckland Abbey
Virgin of the Annunciation unknown artist
National Trust, Buckland Abbey
Ann Carew, Lady Apsley (c.1580–1612/16) British (English) School