The Culm runs past Bradninch, at a little distance to the east, and a few miles farther on the river passes under the dark hills of Killerton Park, a heavily wooded and irregular ridge, rising at either extremity and ending in a decided slope down to the flat space just around. The house is not an old one, although the Aclands have been here since the reign of Queen Elizabeth, when Sir John Acland moved from the estate at Landkey, near Barnstaple, where they were already settled in the reign of Henry II. He built a house at Culm John (quite close to Killerton) that was garrisoned for the King during the Civil War, and held out when almost every other place in Devonshire had surrendered. But it has since been pulled down. There are many stories of different members of this family, but perhaps the most romance lies in that of Lady Harriot Acland, who, with serene courage, followed her husband through the horrors and hardships of a campaign. In 1776 Major Acland was with the army that had been sent to crush the American struggle for Independence, and his wife had accompanied him. The following extract is taken from a statement by General Burgoyne, the General commanding the troops in Canada: 'In the course of that campaign, she had traversed a vast space of country in different extremities of seasons. She was restrained from offering herself to a share of the hazard expected before Ticonderoga, by the positive injunction of her husband. The day after the conquest of that place he was badly wounded, and she crossed the Lake Champlain to join him.'