The arrival of the actor Jim Broadbent in Kingsbridge last autumn to shoot some scenes for a film “The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry” prompted some old memories. Who remembers the 1950’s TV series Quatermass (which terrified me) and later the first series of “Maigret” in the early sixties both of which starred Rupert Davies? The…
The origins of the names of the three villages in the parish are all ancient. Hope comes from the old Norse “Hop” meaning a small bay or inlet. South Huish is Old English for “southern household” and the name Galmpton has had many variations over the centuries, but the root of all the variations concerns rent-paying…
The 1841 census shows that only The Hope and Anchor, and the Bird in Hand (now the Cove) offered accommodation, but before the end of the 19th century, and before the Earl Devon of was forced to sell his property here, he encouraged local people to take in paying guests. The history group has copies of wonderful comments…
This is a long overdue “Thank you” to all the people who have been in touch after reading the blog…. We have had some marvellous new information from people who grew up in the parish and who came here on holiday. We always welcome your memories. I loved the memory of Mrs. Jarvis giving children…
When Emperor Haile Selassie was exiled from Ethiopia from 1936 to 1941, his presence in the UK was an embarrassment to the government, so he soon bought a house in Bath well away from London. He came with a big retinue of family and staff. He had two granddaughters who were sent to boarding school in…
This is a heads up for those who haven’t seen the parish news letter. The National Trust along with Historic England, and South Devon AONB are carrying out surveys of the scheduled monuments from Bolt Tail to Salcombe, including investigation of the Iron age (Promontory) fort on Bolt Tail. The last appraisal over 20 years…
I had been expecting to write about bad winters in days gone by, but as we haven’t had any snow … yet, I thought I’d save the snow stories, and thought instead about what we are missing during the pandemic, and one of the many things is entertainment especially dancing. The first evidence of dancing in the…
This sounds like an Alice in Wonderland riddle, but as in normal times Christmas is for many people the only time they go inside a church, I though it would be interesting to discover when a Church isn’t a Church, and the answer to the riddle is, when it is a Chapel of Ease, and…
The strong winds and big seas of this early November brought to mind “our” Eddystone Lighthouse and the great storm 1703. The Eddystone reef consists of three ridges of spiky rocks and two central rocks 14 miles SSW of Plymouth. For centuries the reef claimed the lives of countless sailors, increasingly so in the late…
Early hotel brochures often described Hope Cove as “A sleepy fishing village”, but was it ever the case? Tales of smugglers in earlier centuries indicate they were lively and interesting times, locals outwitting the many Coastguards working in the village, with plenty of contraband. So sleepy probably not, but is was a fishing village. There have…