The Time Line of the Wharves

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…

Published in 1724, Daniel Defoe’s account of his visit to the SW peninsular reported that the Port of Bideford’s trade was, by then, mostly in fish, but that rock salt, for preserving the local Herring catch, was also being shipped into the town from Liverpool. Defoe noted “There is indeed,…

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…

On Donne’s 1756 one inch to the mile survey, East-the-Water still shows as little more than a ribbon of development. In Torrington Street this extends southward to a point due east of Ford House, at which point a street, with accompanying properties, runs directly inland for a short distance. Adjacent…

After significant rainfall, the heavy local soils must have made road travel a nightmare, but in 1763 the Barnstaple Turnpike Trust was established, its responsibilities included provision of improved routes from Barnstaple to Bideford as well as a turnpike from East-the-Water to Great Torrington, via the traditional Wear Gifford and…

On 31 March 1774 Britain ordered the closure of the port of Boston, thus setting the scene for the American War of Independence (1775-81). The war curtailed Bideford’s foreign trade, forcing a greater reliance on the local trades of shipbuilding and pottery. But it may also have had a sudden…

In 1794 Instead Marshall published an account of Bideford in his Rural Economy of the West Country. The war with America had apparently taken its toll, for he suggests the town was “remarkably forbidding,” by virtue of its narrow streets and cheaply built houses. In the open spaces furze faggots…

Overlooking the Torridge, and now vaulting across the Tarka Trail by a stone-built pedestrian bridge, lies the cul-de-sac known as Vinegar Hill. We have, it has been suggested, the Irish Rebellion of 1798 to thank for this unusual name. Fuelled by the revolutionary fervour in France, and also American’s bid…

Culm is a local name for anthracite and an outcrop of culm bearing strata crosses East-the-Water, beneath Mines Road, Eastridge View, and Grange Road, before continuing, under the Torridge, and onward under western Bideford. A lease signed by the Earl of Bath (John Grenville, 1628-1701) suggests this was being exploited…

The road from Bideford to Great Torrington had historically run to the east of the Torridge, departing up the steep hill through East-the-Water then running southward through Weare Giffard. In 1824 that was the route followed by the toll road, but, in that year, an act was passed to enable…

The period from 1830-1844 marked a low point for the economy of Devon and across that period some 1,500 people sailed to Prince Edward Island from the West Country, the majority choosing Bideford as their point of departure. James Yeo’s 283 ton vessel, British Lady (built in 1836) regularly sailed…