FORD, a seat of the Earl of Devon, adjacent to Newton Abbot r. station, in Devon. It was built, in the time of James I., by Sir R. Reynell; was taken thrice by the royalists, and four times by the parliamentarians, in the civil war; gave lodging, for a night, to the Prince of Orange, when on his way from Torbay to Exeter; and has undergone judicious repair.

(John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72))