Kingsbridge memories
Here are memories of Kingsbridge and the local area. You can start now: Add your own Memory of Kingsbridge or a Kingsbridge photo.
Birthplace
My grandmother, Mary Honor Parsley, was born here in 'Ticket Wood in 1900, my mother Jacqueline Oldman too in 1925. Honor's mother was born Elizabeth Ford, sister to Philip the house owner I believe.
The big house is now gone and replaced with something much more contemporary!
Tackett Wood was/is the local Deb'n vernacular for the area.
Shopping in Fore Street, Kingsbridge
My memories relate to the 1950's when I spent school summer holidays with my grandmother, Lily Creber, and great aunt, Gladys Hill, at Windsor Road. There was an agricultural machinery repairer just around the corner, next to Church Street Post Office. Old machinery was stored in a yard at the bottom of Windsor Road, and being a pre-teen lad I used to explore the various items laying around! Grandmother owned the walled garden beyond the garages and I would walk through that garden to gain access to one of the alleyways that led up to the town. The one we used most was that which passed Lugger Brothers, Printers. We used to go to International Stores and buy sugar and prunes weighed out in blue paper bags! I also remember that Fore Street was two way traffic in those days! Western National buses on service 93 ground their way up the hill from after leaving the station yard with its black corrugated metal... Read more
Kingsbridge Grammar School
I attended KGS from 1952 - 1959.
The Old Grammar School seen in this picture had long been replaced by a much larger building in Westville, Kingsbridge.
For the first couple of terms, I remember walking in file from Westville, past the railway station, to this building where we sat on long benches and ate our school dinners.
It is a handsome building and now houses the William Cookworthy Museum.
Kingsbridge 1950s 1960s
My memories of Kingsbridge are really from 1955 to 1966 during which period I attended the Junior School in Waterloo Road, the Secondary School in Foss Road and following the amalgation of the Grammar and Secondary Schools in 1964 the then Senior Department of the Comprehensive School in Kingsley Road and the many excellent teachers that gave me a solid grounding to achieve a very successful career in the Ministry of Defence. Kingsbridge then was a real market town in which Fore Street offered everything from toys at K&Ms, Spinks and Riches to numerous bakers,butchers, grocers and so many other shops that provided our needs. Transport was also available in the form of a Branch Line to South Brent and more important to me as a little boy by the Western National Omnibus Co Ltd because my dear late father Charles (Charlie) Hadfield was the Depot Manager from 1943 to 1966
Holiday Home
We had the use of a 3 bed detached home down here for 10 years, it was right at the top of the hill and we could see for miles in all directions. We would come down with suitcases and chill, our youngest was 1 and eldest 13, we had family members stay with us, met lovely christians on mudbury beach, and are still close friends with them. I would love watching the fields change, harvest, ploughed, hay bales, the trains, Canonteign Falls, and a £70 bill for a tyre, we had big tyres. Hope cove, ah, used to spend hours making dams and castles, loved Blackpool sands, the waves were great, what joy...
Memories of Devon
The Quillett
Just a quick message to say that the cottage on the left that comes down to the road in the photo is ours. It is now called the Quillett, we have restored it back to its former glory, and makes a wonderful home. Thank you for the wonderful photo from your collection.
Regards,
Graham Jinks.
Recent Visit to This Spot
Recently we took my Dad's Canadian cousin to this spot. John Pine (her father) was born here at New Mills, Loddiswell in 1889. William Henry Pine (my great grandfather) was miller and parish overseer. In our family photos we have an identical photograph and family lore is that they remembered the photograph being taken. After working at New Mills my great grandfather moved to Garden Mills, Kingsbridge.
Today the scene across the River Avon is little altered - although the mill is no longer in operation. The village of Loddiswell is up at the top of the hill.
Woodbine House Next to The Turks Head
My grandparents lived in the house nextdoor to the Turks Head from c1952 to c1961. The house was called Woodbine House in those days and all the windows faced the street. The garden was across the street and my grandfather kept chickens and grew vegetables and my grandmother tended the flower garden. I believe the the people who ran the Turks Head were called Mr and Mrs Cherry. My grandfather died in 1959 and my grandmother continued to live there for awhile before moving to the cottage nextdoor to her daughter who lived near Ugborough. I remember that there was a butchers shop, a couple of general stores and the post office in the village.
Loddiswell School Dinners
I was fortunate to be at Loddiswell Primary school in the last few years of the reign of Ms Christian Michell and Ms Margaret Common, in the late 60s. In these days the summers were always very hot, and winters very cold with plenty of snow to have fun in.
These ladies were formidable, and I still shudder a little thinking of them. There were other teachers I vaguely remember, but these two left an impression on me.
Ms Michell would love to tell us the same old joke about some foreigner who came to paint her house. Something about him being an "Artiste" not an "Artist". I still don't get it. I think she just wanted the walls painting.
One of the most odd things that sticks in my memory is that there were 4 sizes of school dinners. One had to book the size of the dinners for the week early on Monday morning, and it would be... Read more
Leonard John Yeoman
Leonard John Yeoman (my grandfather) always claimed that he was the young chap carrying the buckets in this photograph. He spent his whole life living around the Malborough/ Hope Cove area. Therefore, it's quite plausible that it is indeed him in this photograph.
He went on to serve in the RAF in Malta, Egypt and Palestine during World War II. From his childhood up until his last few years he was a central member of the local church choir. A real character.
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