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...
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...
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...
COLEBROOKE REVEL About 200 years ago the people of Colebrooke would be getting ready for their annual festivities. However, The Colebrooke Revel seems to have been taking place long before this and originally began with a church service on the morning of the Sunday nearest the 7th of July followed by a day of sporting activities.
In 1896 a paper read to the Devonshire Association regarding the revels of Devon over the previous 100 years mentioned Colebrooke and said it had become noteworthy for its “Revel Buns”Read more...