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Parracombe
Parracombe maps
Historic maps of Parracombe and the local area, hand-drawn by Ordnance Survey and Samuel Lewis. View all Parracombe maps
Parracombe area books
Displaying 1 of 26 books about Parracombe and the local area. View all books for this area
You can read extracts and browse photos from these books.
Memories of Parracombe
Displaying a selection of personal
memories of Parracombe.
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Happy Memories of Holidays as A Child
I came to Parracombe regularly as a child (born Oct 1942) with my parents. We stayed at "Fernlea" with Mr and Mrs George Court and their daughter Mary (about my age). My father George Pickering, and my mother Jessie Pickering would go to the "Fox and Goose" in the evenings. The Landlord was Fred Crick (Creek)? My father played the piano, and went with Fred into Barnstaple to buy a piano to replace the old one. They did, but apparently this piano was floating through the village after the floods hit!! I believe we stayed in Parracombe about 2 weeks before the floods. I have a photo of myself as a small girl taken outside the Fox and Goose holding the lead of an Old English Sheepdog (not ours - I haven't a clue who it belonged to!). I visited Mr and Mrs Court when I was married, and bought my late husband and my two sons to visit - by then they had split their bungalow in two and... Read more
The Nulty Family at Kittitoe Near Parracombe
I think I was 12 years old and living in Hatch End, Middlesex, when I first noticed a lovely girl of about my own age called Alison Nulty. She moved to Parracombe as her family wanted to start a chicken farm on a beautiful old house called Kittitoe. The Nulty family invited us to go and spend a few days with them at half-term soon after they settled in Devon. I loved those few days there - we stayed up late playing pontoon in the barn by the light of an oil lamp and I was in love! Being 12 years old of course meant I didn't do anything about it although I did manage to get a photograph of her on her Daddy's Land Rover when she was crowned as the carnival queen! Here we are 50 years later and she still doesn't know how she affected me!
Devon memories
Woody Bay
I have a lot of information about Woody Bay from the 1880's to the 1980's. I lived there myself from 1968 to 1971 and had connections with the place after that.
Rather than ramble on for ages and ages, the simple answer is for me to give you my e-mail address (Mail@McIlhattons.com) and let anyone interested ask me questions direct.
Key words: Throckmorton, Bailey, Benjamin Greene-Lake, Smith, Lynton & Lynmouth Urban District Council, West, Marlowe, Woody Bay Hotel, Slattenslade, Elkie Brooks, Andrews, Kempf, Lynton & Barnstaple Railway, Law Society, Inkerman, Martinhoe, Parracombe, de Wichelhalse, folk stories, Valley of the Rocks, Lee Abbey, Hunters' Inn.
Alan Bruce.
A Day Out With my Granddaughter at Arlington Court
Easter Sunday 2009 was a gloriously fine and sunny day - just right for a family outing so my son David drove us all in my car to Arlington Court which is an enormous National Trust property not far from Barnstaple.
Granddaughter Anna sat on the back seat next to Grandma and sang nursery rhymes for nearly all the journey of an hour from our home in Tiverton. When we arrived we found they were organising an Easter Egg Trail so that was fun following the clues.
We also went inside the grand house - Anna who is only just three years old loved the big wide staircase and the display cabinets of sea shells. We walked around the lake and took some photos to remind ourselves later of our outing. We walked up to the stables and saw the carriage museum and the horses which fascinated young Anna. By this time she was hungry so Grandma went back to the car park to fetch... Read more
Collard & Collard Grand Piano at Arlington Court
Today I had a wonderful experience at the National Trust property, Arlington Court. The stewards on duty allowed me to play their grand piano in the main hall and it was a wonderful instrument made by Collard & Collard around 1830 - 1850.
The staff opened the piano lid, and the tone sounded superb! I played a piece from memory as my sight reading is not good and thoroughly enjoyed myself - a memory to remember!
A Visit to Lymouth in 2010
I took a party of friends for a day's outing to Lynmouth and Lynton and travelled on this wonderful cliff railway. It still looks exactly the same! It was a sunny but chilly May day and we started our day's fun with lunch and drinks in The Rising Sun - a lovely ancient inn on the sea front. This was followed by a gentle stroll upstream along the river walk for a mile or so and eventually a return to Lynmouth for ice creams and a gentle wander around the town. We found ourselves near the bottom of the cliff railway and treated ourselves to a single ticket to the top station (at 2 a ticket single!). I last made this ride around 1957 with a young girl friend, Alison Nulty, and I am sure we only paid 3d! Once at the top we had a look around Lynton and then consulted the map to find the "zig-zag walk" which would take us back down to the seafront carpark in Lynmouth.... Read more
Lynmouth Flood
My wife and I were staying in Middleham Cottages that night and escaped to the schoolhouse with other survivers. We escaped the village the next day, after a terrifying night, through the Lynmouth Hotel to the bridge by ladder across the water. I have painted the original Middleham Cottages from an old photo as it was before the disaster.
