Feniton History Group held the 78th Meeting in the Nog Inn

It is amazing, we all turn up at the Nog Inn with nothing prepared, and hey presto we have a wonderful evening full of topics and interests.

The business part:

We will be taking the Railway Photos to the Ottery Heritage AGM meeting Tues 20th Jun 2017. Chris Saunders will keep in touch with the details nearer the date.

           7.30pm: Annual General Meeting
            8.00pm: 'The Train Now Departing' The Historic video of the South West branch lines in the age of steam, plus some personal memories from special guests.

The Map site we looked up has sent an update, not had chance to look at it yet, I will send their email with this report. http://geo.nls.uk/maps/gb1900/

We would like to hold the Rogation Walk  on Sun 21st. May I suggest we meet in Green Lane at 2:30 pm by the path at Beechwood Farm. Then follow the public footpaths to the back of the village hall and return by road to Green Lane. Dogs welcome, but must be kept on a lead in the fields where livestock are.

Then we moved on to our natter over a pint.

 Bob told us how nice the Wesley Chapel is at Fenny Bridges, it closed in 1939  and is now a holiday let. The windows and layout are    very well done. Good to see it is still being used and not left derelict. It was a pig sty before the conversion.

 Hugh is using the British newspapers archive for his football research. Brenda and I love this online resource for local and family history research.  Always amazed at the work the journalists did in taking down so many names and details of the occasions they were reporting, and then the typesetters putting it all together for the presses.

Brenda was so pleased to find an article where her father sang and her mother played the organ at a wedding, she had no idea of this growing up.

Jenny has been approached by the Battle Fields Trust to record and highlight the 1549 battle with information boards situated in the village. This will be put to the Parish Council at the next meeting, Mon 8th May 2017. The thought of our group was that the wall by the village hall would be ideal.

The Battle of Pinhoe was mentioned in a tour of Plymtree Church I attended which may have cause the church there to be damaged and rebuilt? Sounds a long shot to me!!! Also the Battle of Wiggaton was mentioned, but cannot find a reference on Google.


Brenda  told us about the Newfoundland fishing  where cod  fisherman from southwest spent much of the year. Amazing to thing they sailed into the virtual unkown, leaving families at home.


Geoff volunteers in the Southwest Heritage Centre, the old Record office, he tells us that many shipping records are  now on line here:


 In the 1300s winters was warmer, enabling people to  live on Dartmoor and fish around Greenland. Ship ownership was in shares and even the town owned them. A ship is  owned 64 shares, some were sold to the town.  Smoking was good for you and the rum grog neat for the officers!

Devon Colic was caused by Cider, containing  lead found in the materials used to make the cider. 

The evening was rounded of with some of Alan’s Devon  Dialect snippets and a poem
in dialect,  “They all be Gone Now”. Thank you all for a wonderful evening.


Next meeting in the Nog Inn 8pm on 4th May.