The Delves-Broughtons settled into their new life in Kenya and became part of “The Happy Valley” set along with others, among which was Lord Errol who started a very public affair with Diana. Lord Errol was subsequently found shot in the head in his car at a crossroads outside Nairobi. Sir John was arrested on suspicion of murder but was subsequently acquitted due to lack of evidence, principally involving the murder weapon, a pistol. After this he was never accepted back into the Happy Valley set and his wife had already taken another lover. He returned to England in December 1942 and a few days later was found dying of a morphine overdose at The Adelphi Hotel in Liverpool. His widow, Diana, married a further three times. The murder case was turned into a film in 1987 called The White Mischief based on a 1982 book of the same name.

After Emma died in 1898 Robert Tucker-Pain set up The Tucker-Pain Nursing Fund that same year. This was to provide for nursing attendance for the sick among the working classes in the parish of Withycombe Raleigh. In 1899 he married secondly, Harriett Emma Shirley Kennedy, born in 1868 and in 1901 they had a second son Charles Davy Pain who went on to make his fortune in Burma and India and returned to Exmouth in the early 1960s. He founded The Pain Trust which provided bursaries for boys and young men from 11 to 21 years of age who live in Exmouth or East Devon to travel the world. He died in 1971.

Robert Tucker-Pain was an artist whose paintings today are collectable and often fetch hundreds of pounds at auction. He died at Ryll Court on 11 February 1942, aged 101. His wife, Harriett also died in that year. They are buried in the Old Yard plot at St John’s in the Wilderness.

Between 1942 and 1947 it is not known who lived at Ryll Court, but in 1947 it was recorded that “As being an Exmouth Training College Hostel next to Marpool Hill, with a telephone number of Exmouth 3281, it being an attractive old house with beautiful gardens.” This training college was Rolle College which itself was based in Douglas Avenue. The warden of the hostel was Miss Cooper, a lecturer at the college and she and Miss Sansom ably assisted by their cats, Simon and Caligula acted as hostesses at the annual garden parties held there for the staff of Rolle College.

One of these boarders was Jean Mallett (nee Boone) who was living there between 1948 and 1950 and whose room was on the ground floor, shared with other girls. Also, around this time there was a girl called Ingrid Lehmann who was billeted there when she arrived in Exmouth from Germany as part of the North Sea scheme following the Second World War. They were  referred to as “The Ten Shilling Girls” as they were treated on equal terms with English workers. She later married Hugh Jones of Exmouth.

In 1962 Ryll Court was sold by Rolle College to developers and later that year it was demolished. In its place are bungalows in what is now Ryll Court Drive. If you walk up Albion Hill, as you reach the top, on your right you can view the castellated stone wall of the former gardens of Ryll Court, although originally the lands of the house were higher. Walk around the corner and view the last remains of the Ryll Court Estate in the form of the original two white gate pillars, now part of the first bungalow there. As you walk down this road you will be on the original driveway to the former magnificent Ryll Court, one of several large houses on small estates that no longer exist in Exmouth.

If you would like to find out more please visit www.exmouthmuseum.co,uk or email Mike at exmouthmuseum@gmail.com