Posted: | Categories: coleford | Tags: coleford, king charles, Post Office
Painting of Spencer Cottage - Post office SPENCERS COLEFORD Most people are familiar with various guide books and estate agents telling us how Charles 1st either reviewed his troops, stabled his horse or even slept in the porch at Spencers in 1644. Charles indeed passed through Coleford on July 29th 1644, having spent the previous night at Crediton and was at Bow by the night of the 29th. Read more...
Posted: | Categories: Devon, Local History | Tags: Coleford, North Devon Railway, The Ship Inn, 1853
The Ship Inn Brawl of 1853: A Historic Tale from Coleford In the early 1850s, the construction of the North Devon Railway from Crediton to Barnstaple brought a wave of activity to the quiet village of Coleford. The work attracted navvies (navigators) tasked with carving out a significant railway cutting east of the village. The Ship Inn: Lodging for Navvies Many of these navvies lodged at The Ship Inn, now known as Browns Farm. Read more...
Posted: | Categories: colebrooke | Tags: colebrooke, water
I grew up listening to greybeards of the area opining that the name Colebrooke originally meant “Land of the Cool Brooks”, which Colebrooke parish has many. With that in mind, it may come as a surprise for people to learn that the village of Colebrooke suffered badly from lack of water until the 1950s. My memories of this stem from the war years and just after, as a schoolboy watching people carrying water in buckets from the Vicarage Well, a source of water which was then in the vicarage garden but now in the grounds of The Oyster… The carrying apparatus consisted of a square frame into which a yoke had been fitted with a bucket holding just over 2 gallons (c 10 litres) on either side. Read more...
Posted: | Categories: penstone | Tags: bridge, penstone
THE GATEWAY TO PENSTONE The memories of a Victorian structure as told to me by the late Penstone Bridge I was erected some 170 years ago together with my “twin”, Waterleat Bridge, a couple of hundred yards south, who for unknown reasons has recently been labelled Yeoford Bridge. In reference books, it is Waterleat Bridge No 573, 183 miles from Waterloo. We were built to enable the railway, which had recently been extended from Bristol to Exeter, to carry its passengers and goods through to Barnstaple. Read more...