Appledore, Devon
| Appledore | |
| Devon | |
|---|---|
 Appledore | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | SS465305 |
| Location: | 51°3’9"N, 4°11’40"W |
| Data | |
| Population: | 2,814 (2011) |
| Post town: | Bideford |
| Postcode: | EX39 |
| Dialling code: | 01237 |
| Local Government | |
| Council: | Torridge |
| Parliamentary constituency: |
Torridge and West Devon |
Appledore is a village in the north of Devon standing the mouth of the River Torridge, about six miles west of Barnstaple and about three miles north of Bideford. The population was recorded as 2,814 in 2011.
The village is home to Appledore Shipbuilders, a lifeboat slipway and Hocking's Ice Cream, a brand of ice cream only sold in North Devon.
History
This Appledore is not mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086 (though it mentions two other, smaller, Appledores in Devon).[1] Its earliest recorded name, in 1335, is le Apildore in the manor of Northam.[2]
There was a village here in Saxon days, but the Devon historian WG Hoskins says of the local legend that it was the site of a Viking raid in 878 AD, 'there is no authority for this identification'.[3]
The village prospered as a port in the Elizabethan period, and some cottages date from this period. The construction of a quay in 1845 further developed the port, and as a result Appledore has a rich maritime heritage from the second half of the 19th century. The painter Edward Calvert was born here in 1799. The shipowner Sir William Reardon Smith was born in Appledore and went to the Wesleyan school here.[4]
The Richmond Dry Dock was built in 1856 by William Yeo and named after Richmond Bay in Prince Edward Island, where the Yeo family's shipping fleet was based. From 1882 until the 1930s it was owned by Robert Cook, and continued in use until the 1960s.[5] It is a Grade II* listed building.[6]
There is a museum in the village, the North Devon Maritime Museum, chronicling the history of shipbuilding and seafaring in Appledore.[7]
Lifeboats
A lifeboat service for the area around the mouth of the River Taw was introduced in February 1825. The boat was kept in the King's Watch House at Appledore for six years until a new boat house was built at Watertown, half a mile nearer the sea. From 1848 a second lifeboat was stationed at Braunton Burrows on the opposite side of the estuary but its crew always came from Appledore.
A third station was built at Northam Burrows to the west of Appledore in 1851 and the Appledore boat moved there. A new station at Badsteps allowed Northam Burrows to close in 1889 and Braunton Burrows closed in 1918 as it was difficult to find men and horses to launch the boat.
Appledore Lifeboat Station was rebuilt in 2001 and is home to an inshore lifeboat; a larger all-weather Tamar class boat is kept moored just off shore.[8]
Railway
The Bideford, Westward Ho! and Appledore Railway (B,WH&A,R) was most unusual amongst British railways in that although it was built as a standard gauge line (4 ft 8½in) it was not joined to the rest of the railway network, despite the London and South Western Railway having a station at Bideford, East-the-Water, meaning on the other side of the River Torridge from the main town. The line was wholly situated on the peninsula made up of Westward Ho!, Northam and Appledore with extensive sand dunes, at the mouth of the Torridge and Taw estuary. Appledore railway station and the whole line closed in 1917 having been requisitioned by the War Office (Stuckey 1962).
Sport
- Football: Appledore F.C.
Pictures
-
The quay at Appledore. -
Appledore Shipyard from across the Torridge estuary -
St. Mary's Church -
The war memorial
In popular culture
In his novel Westward Ho!, Charles Kingsley describes Appledore as a "little white fishing village".
Nikolai Tolstoy, Patrick O'Brian's stepson, considers that the fictional town of 'Shelmerston' in O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin series may have been based on Appledore. O'Brian's wife, Mary Wicksteed, grew up in Appledore.[9] Other indications suggest it was Salcombe on the south coast of Devon.
Outside links
 |
("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Appledore, Devon) |
- Appledore Village
- Appledore and Instow Regatta
- Appledore Pirates
- Devon Local Studies - Appledore
- Appledore Visitor Information
References
- ↑ Open Domesday
- ↑ "Historical Gazetteer of English Place Names". http://placenames.org.uk/browse/mads/epns-deep-08-c-mappedname-000850. Retrieved 19 February 2017.
- ↑ "Extract from Devon by W.G.Hoskins (1954)". Devon County Council. http://www.devon.gov.uk/print/historicnortham. Retrieved 19 February 2017.
- ↑ "Welcome to Appledore". www.appledore.org. Archived from the original on 10 March 2009. https://web.archive.org/web/20090310192043/http://appledore.org/. Retrieved 19 March 2009.
- ↑ "The story of the Dy Dock". Celebrating Appledore's Shipping Heritage. Archived from the original on 8 September 2008. https://web.archive.org/web/20080908064004/http://www.appledoredrydock.org.uk/dockhistory.html. Retrieved 15 August 2009.
- ↑ National Heritage List 10200661: Appledore, Devon
- ↑ "Appledore Museum". North Devon Museums Trust. http://www.devonmuseums.net/appledore. Retrieved 15 August 2009.
- ↑ Leach, Nicholas (2009). Devon's Lifeboat Heritage. Chacewater: Twelveheads Press. pp. 39–44. ISBN 978-0-906294-72-7.
- ↑ Tolstoy, Nikolai (2005). Patrick O'Brian: The Making of the Novelist, 1914-1949. W. W. Norton. p. 217. ISBN 978-0393061307.
- Stuckey, Douglas: 'The Bideford, Westward Ho! and Appledore Railway 1901-1917' (West Country Publications, 1962)