Church 1907, Alwington
Church 1907, Alwington Ref: 59294
Memories of Church 1907, Alwington
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Alwington & local memories
Read and share memories of Alwington and Devon inspired by Frith photos.
Growing up in The 1960's
We lived in Headon's Cottage, Fairy Cross - it had been an old German doctor's cottage in the 1700s, a Doctor Wacerill who is buried in St. Andrew's churchyard, and his faded plaque was still above the front door - walls made of cob and thatched roof etc. We were just up the road from Portledge drive - my grandfather William George Harris was woodsman and forester on the Portledge Estate for the Pine-Coffin family for over 50 years and his grandfather before him had been the estate foreman. As a boy I very often walked our Rottweiler dog , Limbo, down Portledge drive turning into the woods halfway down and making our way over some wooden bridges and past a couple of huts my grandfather had made for shelter, past what seemed to be a big lake often with ducks on it and ending up at the sea - also remember the wooden beachhut there (I suppose for changing into swimming costumes - not that it got much use!)... Read more
Church Going in The 1960's
As local village children we used to walk from Fairy Cross meeting other children from the council houses along the way and wind our way through the narrow lane, sometimes picking wild strawberries in summer - moving out of the way of cars that needed to pass us - usually on their way to church also - untill we arrived at St. Andrews, Alwington. We always sat up in the choir stalls with Mrs. Elston (who had been my first teacher at Abbotsham school - Alwington school, where my mother had attended, had closed some years previously because of low numbers and all from our village then went by bus to Abbotsham). I can remember at special services - Christmas etc. - that some of us children would read from the Bible to the congregation and when I did this I was always very nervous and once I lost my place and it seemed like ages before I found it again! Old Colonel and Mrs Pine-Coffin were always in the... Read more
Coffin Ancestry
My great-grandmother was Ellen Amanda Coffin, she was a direct descendent of Richard Coffin who was granted the parish of Alwington and the surrounding area by William the Conqueror for his services during the Norman Conquest (1066). Ellen Amanda Coffin was descended from Richard through the line of Peter Coffin who was born in 1535 at Portledge, Devonshire, England. Peter's son Tristram Coffin emigrated to America in 1642. Ellen Amanda Coffin was a seventh generation descendant of Peter. In the late 1800s Levi Leighton in his writings about his home-town of Columbia, Maine, mentions the local connection to Richard Coffin and Richard's service to William the Conqueror by whom he was rewarded with land and title. Ellen Amanda Coffin married Otis C. Tibbetts in 1855 and died in Columbia Falls, Maine, in 1899. I am 73 years old and living in Columbia Falls, Maine, and grew up in the house where Ellen and Otis had brought up thier family.
