page_title: Pixton Park
section_title: Acland
hierarchical_section_title: Pixton Park / History / Acland
context_page_description: Pixton Park is a country house in the parish of Dulverton, Somerset, England. It is associated with at least three historically significant families, successively by descent: Acland, amongst the largest landowners in the Westcountry; Herbert, politicians and diplomats; and Waugh, writers. The present grade II* listed Georgian mansion house was built circa 1760 by the Acland family and in 1870 was altered by Henry Herbert, 4th Earl of Carnarvon. Although Pixton Park is situated within the manor of Dulverton, the manorial chapel relating to Pixton is situated not at Dulverton but within the Church of St Nicholas, Brushford, across the River Barle, as the lordship of the manor of Dulverton was held from 1568 by the Sydenham family seated at Combe House, on the opposite side of the River Barle to Dulverton and Pixton.
context_section_description: Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, 7th Baronet (1722-1785) of Killerton, Devon and Petherton Park in Somerset, who acquired Pixton by his marriage to the heiress Elizabeth Dyke (d.1753). In 1746 he took over mastership of the Staghounds following the death of Edward Dyke.
  Col. John Dyke Acland (1747-1778), eldest son and heir apparent, who predeceased his father. He was a Tory MP and a soldier who fought in the American War of Independence.  In 1770 he married  Lady Harriet Fox-Strangways (d.1815),  a daughter of Stephen Fox-Strangways, 1st Earl of Ilchester (1750-1815), and in the marriage settlement his father gave him the estates of Pixton, Tetton and Petherton Park. He died young at the age of 34. His only son was Sir John Dyke Acland, 8th Baronet (1778–1785), "Little Sir John", who was heir to his grandfather the 7th Baronet, who died in 1785, but having inherited the baronetcy and Killerton, he himself died aged only 7, when that estate and the baronetcy descended to his uncle Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, 9th Baronet (1752–1794), second son of Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, 7th Baronet (1722–1785).
  Elizabeth "Kitty" Acland, only daughter and sister of the 8th Baronet, who in 1796 married Henry George Herbert, 2nd Earl of Carnarvon, then aged 24 and known by his courtesy title of Lord Porchester. Her widowed mother Lady Harriet continued to live at Pixton until her daughter's marriage, when as a marriage settlement she gave her the estates of Pixton and Tetton, and herself moved to Tetton as dowager, where she died in 1815 after a long battle with cancer. Thus Pixton and Tetton passed to the Herbert family.
caption: Arms of Acland: Chequy argent and sable, a fesse gules. As visible in the Herbert Chapel, Brushford Church, Somerset