Migration and motto
EARLY ORIGINS OF THE MUNN FAMILY
The surname Munn was first found in Kent where they held a family seat at Maidstone in that shire. They were descended from Guillaume (William) de Moyon , a Norman Baron. William de Moyon received large grants of land in Somerset, the Lordship of Clehangre in Devon (derived from Dummonia. It is located in the South West of England and borders Cornwall, Dorset and Somerset.) It has a large coast line with both cliffs and shores.
The history of the Norman Conquest was an invasion and occupation of England in 1066 AD by an army made up of thousands of Normans, Bretons, Flemish, and French troops, led by William I, the Duke of Normandy, later styled William the Conqueror.
At the period of the Norman Conquest, this town (now called Minehead), was given by William (the Conqueror) to William de Mohun. Although the main stem of this very noble Norman family retained various spellings of Munn or Munns, junior lines adopted the name Munson or Munnings. The same William de Mohun (Moyon) held estates in Dunster, Somerset.
The town, which is called Torre in Domesday Book, owes its origin to a baronial castle built here by William de Mohun, a Norman Baron on whom the Conqueror had bestowed large estates in this part of the kingdom. The castle, which was held by the family of Mohun till the reign of Edward III., was the scene of hostilities in the civil wars of the reigns of Stephen and John, and the contests between the houses of York and Lancaster; the Marquess of Hertford, also, took possession of it for Charles I during the war with the parliament.
Rosteage, (in the parish of Gerrans, Cornwall) in the reign of Elizabeth, was the seat of Reginald Mohun, a captain under Sir Walter Raleigh. In this family it continued until the year 1662, when it was purchased by Nicholas Kempe, Esq.