Sir Richard Reynell

Sir Richard Reynell (c.1558–1633) of Forde in the parish of Wolborough, Devon, was an English lawyer and Member of Parliament. He built the surviving Ford House, now in the suburbs of Newton Abbot and his daughter and sole heiress Jane Reynell, married the Parliamentary general Sir William Waller.

Origins He was the third son of Richard Reynell (1519–1585) of East Ogwell in Devon.

Career Richard followed his two older brothers, Thomas and Josias, into the Middle Temple and in 1617 he was a barrister and Autumn Reader there. In 1593 he was probably Member of Parliament for the Cornish rotten borough of Mitchell together with Walter Raleigh. In the same year of 1593 he was a clerk in the office of the Lord Treasurer's Remembrancer and rose to the rank of senior sworn clerk, known as the "secondary". On 25 July 1622 he was knighted at Theobalds House.

Purchase of Forde, Wolborough At about the time of his marriage in 1600 he bought the estate of Forde in the parish of Wolborough, near Newton Abbot, Devon and immediately set about rebuilding the house.

Monuments A splendid and costly marble monument with recumbent effigies of Sir Richard, his wife and daughter, exists in Wolborough Church, against the north wall of the chancel. Portraits of Sir Richard and his wife hang on the wall of West Ogwell house. His armorials are displayed in stained glass in one of the windows of Middle Temple Hall, and in a window of the hall in Forde House, impaling the arms of Brandon: Argent, two bars gules overall a lion rampant or pelletty