After the early death of his son aged 28 in 1879, Knight sold the reversion after his death of Exmoor to Viscount Ebrington, Master of the Devon and Somerset Staghounds, the future Hugh Fortescue, 4th Earl Fortescue (1854–1932), whose family's principal seat was Castle Hill, Filleigh, 10 miles SW of Simonsbath. In 1927 the Fortescues sold 1,745 acres with Honeymead, Gallon House, Pickedstones and Winstitchen to Sir Robert Waley Cohen. The remainder of the estate continued to be held by the Fortescues until after the death of the 5th Earl in 1958, when the latter's eldest daughter and co-heiress, Lady Margaret Fortescue (b. 1923), sold much of the "Simonsbath Estate", as the former Royal Forest was termed by the family, together with much of the two Fortescue estates centred on Challacombe and West Buckland, to pay large death duties. The Simonsbath Estate properties sold were as follows, per the sales particulars headed "The Challacombe Estate and part of the Exmoor Estate, North Devon" dated 18 September 1959: