In 1877 H. M. Restarick took over Johnson’s shipyard, which appears to have lain on the site of The Key. In 1881 the Manor lands, with the express exclusion of Restarick’s shipyard, were sold to the Borough of Bideford. The Ordnance Survey 1-2500 map of 1888 (surveyed in 1886) shows…
The Torridge Shifts it Favour Westward
In 1871 the building of Landcross viaduct triggered another shift in the course of the Torridge, moving the river’s deep-water channel from the eastern side of the river to its western side.
The Manor Quay Changes Hands
Around 1750 the Manor, and with it The Key, changed hands, passing from the descendants of the Grenville family to John Cleveland of Tapley, the grandson of John Davie. New ownership often brought new investment, so it is of interest to find it said that in 1758 the Lord of…
The Torridge Undoes the Plans of Men
In 1722 a dispute arose between the feoffes of the Long Bridge and the lord of the manor, concerning rights to a section of the East-the-Water foreshore on which their tenant wanted to construct a quay. Thus confirming that the manor exercised rights over part of the eastern shore. About…
The Earliest Diagram of the Quays
It is a plan, produced to support the extension of the Established Key, or its legal approval, that provides the first definitive indication of where the Bideford quays lay. Fielder dates this as c. 1690, which seems too early. Carter and Carter date it 1717 (which, from the evidence below,…
A Fine Harbour on the East
In 1701 John Prince (1643-1723) published his Worthies of Devon, in which he states, concerning the Long Bridge – “On the east side of this bridge is a very fine harbor for ships of good burthen; where they lie and unload in the very bosom of the town, at a…
The 1663 Building of a New Quay
The Magna Britannica (published in 1822) reported that “the Quay, which was constructed in 1663, belongs to the corporation,” thus providing a date that has found its way into other later publications (e.g.White’s Directory for 1850). More properly, it seems that 1663 was the year in which the building of…
Grant of Land with a Quay in 1587
In 1587 the Lord of the Manor, Richard Grenville (1542 – 1591), gave the newly established Borough of Bideford land on which certain limekilns had stood and on which a quay had recently been constructed. We are not told on which side of the river this quay was, but a…
The original quay (some time prior to 1587)
A plan from c. 1717 labels a series of the quays. One is shown as simply The Key. The lack of a need to qualify its name implies that it pre-dated the other quays. Later evidence identifies that the site of The Key still formed part of the manor lands….
13th Century
In the late 13th C. the Long Bridge was built and a chapel erected at either end. In later diagrams and pictures the chapel in East-the-Water is shown immediately beside the bridge and upstream of it. In a plan of c. 1717 there is a similarly positioned building shown on…