Property

Christmas Eve at the Front

An interesting letter has just been received by Mrs Packer, of Broadclyst, from her husband, Corpl Packer of A Company, 1st Battalion Devonshire Regiment, who is serving with the Expeditionary Force in Northern France. In the course of a letter he describes a remarkable incident which occurred on Christmas Eve between the British and German trenches.

Parish Council say ‘no’ to three proposed housing sites

Development round about Abbotsham, and the preparation of a sewerage scheme for the village, have renewed the fears of a number of residents that its unspoiled character is in jeopardy. They feel that in the eyes of the speculator there can be few places more ripe for development and that provision of a drainage scheme is bound to bring in its wake a spate of planning applications.

The Parish Council are wholly alive to the dangers of the situation and Bideford Rural Council are treading warily. For some months the two authorities have been trying to get together and now, at a special meeting, the Parish Council rejected three of six sites proposed for development. “This matter has been going backwards and forwards for months” Major Jack Lomas told the Gazette. “We must not have the village spoiled; we realise there may be limited building, but it must be in the right place and there must not be too much of it.”

The Rural Council are to be told that the Parish Council do not object to two sites, each for four houses, on the road from the Post Office to Greencliffe and just past the Baptist Chapel; neither do they object to a site, again for four houses, to the north of Pump Lane. They are opposing a proposed site for 20 houses in a field known as Holloway and situated at the rear of the Vicarage. Their reasons are that it is on an exposed slope and would spoil the appearance of the village; Pump Lane is narrow with a very dangerous exit on to the main road; the land on the south side of Pump Lane is some eight feet higher than that on the north side therefore houses on the south would completely over look those on the north.

Gazette article dated February 5, 1965

Coats of Arms adorn the walls

Visitors to Weare Giffard Hall,

the 15th century home of Mr and Mrs B G Lampard-Vachell, when it was open to the public in aid of the local Women’s Institute, may well have imagined themselves back in the more spacious days of England’s past.

Here in this lovely old manor house, craftsmen have enshrined in wood, stone, plaster and paint memories of the stirring days of the Tudors, the less settled years of the Stuart Kings and the troublous Civil War era. One of the most notable features is the richly carved hammer-beam roof of the lofty Great Hall stated to have been built between 1450 and 1500. The work is similar to that at Hampton Court and Westminster Hall, although the roof design is richer than in the larger halls. Each hammer-beam is supported by curious, carved animals including a bear, a pig, a lion and a unicorn.

“The roof has not been touched from the time it was built which speaks well of the craftsmanship of that time,” Mr Lampard-Vachell said.