What an interesting evening, many thanks to Roger who dropped
by to share with us his interest in Fenny Bridges Mill. He has a death
certificate gleaned for his interest in postal history. The certificate relates
to Edward Coombe, Miller who died in 1840 and buried at St Anne's Chapel, but
the graves there where re interred at Feniton Church. This is the inscription
on the grave:
Edward COOMBE
of Feniton Mills in this Parish who
gave land for the building of this Chapel
d. 10.3.1840 in 44TH year of age
Also in the same vault
Sarah COOMBE his wife d. 9.1.1860
(re-interred from Fenny Bridges Chapel 1949)
Roger explained the marks on the folded death certificate
gave the date of receipt and the recipient
would have paid the postage, envelopes were not used to the cost down.
More can be read here:
Regarding the roads in the village Jo kindly sent this
note:
My Dad used to tell me
that he remembered the remains of the 'old road' which come down through
a cleft in the rock behind Nap Cottage.
A cross road went North to Rutts at the top of the rise where Rutts Lane
is now.
He said there was an old woman's cottage built into the cliff at the back of
Nap Cottage garden and he and his mates used to climb up above it and drop
stones on the roof. I think it was of
corrugated iron so they were typical little horrors!! [Alan said his father was one of the little horrors!]
He remembered the new road being built as the Council
needed to buy some of the Glebe Lands belonging to the Rectory (then Feniton
House) and they lowered Broad Road gradually as it rose towards the Station so
that the slope to Rutts was passable too.
They built the wall along the length of the Glebe Lands so as to keep
the field up instead of buying more land to make a slope.
When I was on the Parish Council, Devon County wrote to
ask who owned that wall as it was in bad condition. I was able to give them the above details and
to assure them that they owned it themselves!
To my knowledge, no repair work has ever been carried out by them since
that date!! Jo Chown
Thank you Jo.
Our work on the
display for the Patteson Event was very well
received, thank you, the credit goes to all who helped. Jackie went on the walk to Alfington and a wonderful spread was lovely
put on by Alfington Church.
Geoff explained there are still van loads of documents,
including letters to Santa!!, to be indexed and sorted in the Devon Heritage
Centre, a work in progress.
Brenda asked us for photos suitable for the Parish
Magazine cover, must have good definition to reproduce in black and white.
Memories of the snow in 1963 were discussed.
Our earlier discussions on the coach Bishop Patteson
would have taken to the train at Cullompton led Brenda to spot a print in an
auction sale at Ottery of Russell's Flying Wagons.
This link is very
interesting:
Brenda also found out that Russell bought farms along the
route to rest the horses, one being at Redloft Farm Offwell, no longer there
now.
The railways, of course changed all this. Brenda's great grandfather worked on the
construction and was killed in a fall while working on a tunnel at Fowey in
1874.
Bill reported he is working with David to carve oak name
plaques to place on the pews with coats of arms on so that the families are identified
to visitors. He has also kindly offered to make one for the History Group to
place by our displays, following Brenda saying we should have put our name up
on the boards to say we had done the work on the boards. Thank you Bill.
Our next event is the talk with Chris Wakefield from
Ottery Heritage on Boundaries in the Church on 30th April. To be followed by
the Rogation and Beating the Bounds walk on 10th May.
The Friends of St. Andrew's are holding a Wedding Dress
display in the Church weekend of the 16th May. Brenda is writing up the history
of wedding dresses to accompany the dresses.
Our next meeting will be on Thurs. 7th May in the Nog
Inn.
To close we must pass on our Congratulations to David and
Sheila on the celebration of their Golden Wedding Anniversary.
