Explore Bidefords Maritime History
Bideford
became famous in the Victorian era as the “little white town” of
Charles
Kingsley’s book Westward Ho! But this North Devon port by the
River Torridge has
a rich and much older maritime heritage. Bideford was once one
of England’s
greatest ports, with trades and people that made the town
wealthy. They include
a great Elizabethan adventurer, fishermen who braved the ocean
off Newfoundland,
and settlers and merchants who linked Devon to the New World.
On this walk you can discover hidden stories of cod and clay,
tobacco and taxes,
pottery and pipes, sailors and smugglers, death and disease.
Along the way you
can
explore
Bideford’s obvious and unusual connections to nations competing
in
the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
The walk begins and ends at the Burton Art Galley and Museum in
Victoria Park.
The route is just under a mile and a half long with 18 stops
along the way.
Directions 1 – From the front of the museum, walk
towards
the river and stop by the statue of Charles Kingsley.
We begin at the statue of Victorian writer Charles Kingsley who
was born in
Devon in 1819. Like his father he was a clergyman while his
mother came from
a line of Barbadian sugar plantation owners. Kingsley became a
prolific novelist
and was also a professor of history and a social reformer; both
are reflected in
his writings. His best-known work is The Water Babies but this
statue was built
here because of the popularity of another of his books, Westward
Ho!
Westward Ho! is about the adventures of a young man from
Bideford who
follows sixteenth century explorer Sir Francis Drake to sea. It
is a tale of adventure
about the “Spanish Main”, South America and “The Inquisition”.
Kingsley dedicated
the book to James Brooke, the first White Rajah of Sarawak (part
of present-day
Malaysia) and George Selwyn, the first Anglican Bishop of New
Zealand.
In the first sentence of Westward Ho! Kingsley describes
Bideford as
“the little white town, which slopes upwards from its broad
tide-river paved with
yellow sands, and many-arched old bridge.” The book was very
popular and large
numbers of tourists came to visit where it was set. When a town
developed on the
coast nearby it was named Westward Ho! after the book. It
remains the only town in
Britain to have an exclamation mark in its name.
Directions 2 – Walk a few metres to the edge of the
Quay.
Take care here at the water’s edge, especially of children.
Stop when you have a good view of the stone bridge over
the river.
From here you can see the River Torridge. Bideford’s attractive
Long Bridge has
spanned the river for over 700 years. It stands close to the
lowest point the river
could be crossed by a ford. This ford gave the town its name:
Bideford derives from
By-the-Ford. The stone Long Bridge is 190 metres long and has 24
arches.
Look carefully and you will see that the arches are different
widths. It was constructed in the fifteenth century by encasing
an original wooden bridge in stone and the arches probably
reflect the widths of the original timber spans.
Directions 3 – Walk along the Quay towards the bridge,
and stop just after the Lundy Island Ferry terminal building.
Bideford’s sheltered harbour opens out into the Bristol Channel
just over three
miles to the north. To land boats would originally have been
grounded on the
sloping bed of the river but this limits what and when goods can
be uploaded.
Thus a quay was built in 1663 and over the years it has been
raised, widened
and lengthened. Goods from around the world have been
transported here to Bideford Quay. One of the town’s early
trades was importing wool from Spain and Ireland for the weavers
of Devon.
Later there was a big fishing and tobacco trade which we will
hear more
about later. In addition pottery was sent to Ireland and the
United States and
timber imported from Canada for shipbuilding. Oak bark was also
once sent to
tanneries in Ireland and Scotland.
Bideford still operates as a port and you may see cargo ships
moored here.
Ships arrive and depart on the high tide and because the Bristol
Channel has
the second highest tidal range in the world Bideford can take
vessels with up to
five metres draught on spring tides. Shipping is an
international business and
ships visiting Bideford recently have been registered in Russia,
Malta, Gibraltar
and Cyprus. They have had masters and crew from Russia, Ukraine,
Estonia,
Poland and the Philippines. Ships regularly leave Bideford
destined for Spain or
Finland with cargos of clay. Devon is one of the few places in
the world with
deposits of fine plastic “ball clay”. This is very valuable in
pottery making and
over 80 per cent of the ball clay extracted in Devon today is
exported.
Ships also leave Bideford loaded with spruce logs for Wismar in
Germany.
Directions 4 – Continue along the Quay and cross over
the
road to the building with The Rose of Torridge sign. Stop
outside.
The Rose of Torridge is named after the heroine in Charles
Kingsley’s Westward Ho!
It was originally one of four pubs that lined the Quay. It then
became the
Newfoundland Hotel and it is now a fish restaurant. Both these
later uses hint at
Bideford’s fishing trade. At the end of the fifteenth century
the Italian navigator
John Cabot discovered the great cod fishery we now know as the
Grand Banks off Newfoundland in eastern Canada. Fishermen from
Portugal, France and Spain were
quick to exploit it. They had cheap supplies of salt which they
used to process and
cure their catch while still at sea.
The lack of a ready supply of salt put English fishermen at a
disadvantage.
They resorted to drying and lightly salting fish on the shore.
After the defeat
of the Spanish Armada in 1588 however, Spanish and Portuguese
fishing declined.
Their trade was taken up by the English and cod became the
foundation of
Bideford’s wealth. A triangular trade developed with fishing
gear, clothes and
provisions taken from Devon to Newfoundland; from there dried
cod was shipped
to European ports in Italy and Spain; in turn their products
such as olive oil,
wine and dried fruit were brought back to England. Salt cod
influenced the cuisine
of many countries around the Atlantic. In Portugal it is known
as Bacalhau
which is eaten on special days. It is also the basis of the
Jamaican national dish,
ackee and saltfish. You can order cod and chips at the Rose of
Torridge
but you will have to add your own salt!
Directions 5 – Take the narrow passage between the Rose of
Torridge
and the Kings Arms next door and turn left into Allhalland
Street. Stop in a
few metres by the passageway into Chapel Street on your right.
Before the quay was extended the gardens of the houses on the
east side
of Allhalland Street stretched down to the river. This narrow
street was therefore
the main thoroughfare from the bridge to the High Street. You
should be able to see
a cul-de-sac here called Chapel Street which passes under one of
the houses.
A French Huguenot congregation was set up in Bideford in 1695
and this lane
lead to their church. The Huguenots were French Protestants
inspired by
John Calvin in the sixteenth century.
Huguenots suffered religious persecution which caused about
200,000 of them
to leave France. They settled in non-Catholic European countries
such as
the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Denmark and even as far
as Russia.
Many went to settle in the colonies on the East coast of America
and the Dutch East
India Company sent a few hundred to the Cape to develop the
vineyards in South Africa. An estimated 50,000 Huguenots came to
England with perhaps 10,000 later
moving on to Ireland. They settled in London and across the
South and
West of England. They were the first group of people to be
called ‘refugees’ –
the word comes from the French refugier, which means ‘to take
shelter’.
The Huguenots brought skills with them, in particular silk and
cloth weaving,
lace making and tapestry. The famous English diarist Samuel
Pepys may once
have visited Bideford. He married Elisabeth de St Michel who was
born here
and was the daughter of a Huguenot exile.
Directions 6 – Continue to the end of Allhalland Street
and stop at
the junction with Bridge Street. Look across the road at the
Town Hall.
The Town Hall across the road was built in Tudor style to
commemorate the
Elizabethan era when Bideford grew into a major port as we heard
about earlier.
Here is also where Bideford’s most famous and influential
resident, Sir Richard Grenville, is thought to have had a town
house. Bideford was a small fishing
town until the sixteenth century when Grenville obtained a new
charter that
gave Bideford borough status. Grenville was a great adventurer
and went to
Hungary to fight the Turks. He later fought in Ireland where he
owned an
estate with his father-in-law but it was Grenville’s involvement
in America which
was to have the biggest impact on Bideford. Grenville’s cousin,
Walter Raleigh,
had obtained a charter from Queen Elizabeth to colonise North
America.
On Raleigh’s behalf, Grenville sailed to Virginia where he
established a
small garrison on Roanoke Island in modern-day North
Carolina.
A year later he returned with supplies only to find the men had
gone.
Sir Francis Drake had stopped by on his return from a voyage
to
South America just a few days earlier and the men had decided to
return
to England with him.
Grenville left another 15 men to keep a claim to a colony alive
but when merchant
John White arrived the following year he found no trace of them.
Nevertheless White
left around 115 settlers on Roanoke to form a colony. Grenville
prepared to send
supply ships but these were requisitioned to fight the Spanish
Armada. It was three
years before anyone returned to Virginia and there was no sign
of the ‘Lost colony
of Roanoke’. Grenville went on to command the ship ‘Revenge’
which plundered
Spanish treasure ships off the Azores. He was wounded in a
gallant fight at the
Battle of Flores and died a few days later.
Directions 7 – Cross over Bridge Street and follow Church
Walk
up to St Mary’s Church. Stop outside the church.
The tower of St Mary’s Church dates back to the thirteenth
century but the
rest of what you see today was rebuilt by Bideford’s wealthy
merchants in the 1860s.
Inside is the tomb of Richard Grenville’s great grandfather and
monuments to many
of Bideford’s merchants. These include John Strange who helped
the town during
the plague before succumbing himself. In the church porch you
can see the records
of a Native American of the Wynganditoian tribe. He was brought
to Bideford by
Sir Richard Grenville who named him Raleigh after his cousin and
adventurer but
sadly he died of a cold the following year.
Directions 8 – Leave the churchyard by the top gate and
walk to the top of the steps. Turn left into Buttgarden
Street
and stop when you reach St Mary’s flats on your left.
For a step free route to Buttgarden Street, you can return to
Bridge Street and turn left up the hill.
Buttgarden Street dates from 1670 when Bideford had a large
tobacco trade with
the settlers who had followed Richard Grenville to Virginia in
America.
The quayside was too damp to store tobacco and the buildings
opposite are thought
to have been tobacco warehouses. Tobacco smoking came to Europe
after
Christopher Columbus discovered it in Cuba in 1492. Sir Walter
Raleigh is said to
have taken up smoking and popularised it within the Elizabethan
Court in the 1590s.
In the first half of the seventeenth century Bideford merchants
imported more tobacco
in their ships than any other port in England except London.
Over the 10 years to 1731 nearly eight and a half million pounds
of tobacco landed at Bideford Quay.
Great quantities were re-exported to European countries,
particularly the Netherlands
but also to Ireland, Norway, Spain and Germany.
Port records give us some idea of the goods sent back to
Virginia in return.
A ship called the ‘Dove’ owned by Bideford merchant Thomas Smith
arrived in
June 1714 from Virginia with a cargo of tobacco. It returned in
November with mixed merchandise that included rugs, hats,
stockings, textiles, haberdashery, books, paper,
shoes, nails, ironmongery, wrought pewter, brass work, wool
cards, leather chairs,
a chest of drawers and even a looking glass.