When the Bideford Manor Court met in the Town Hall in March 2024 there were a number of ‘presentments’ considered by the jury. These included cleaning the Kingsley statue by Victoria Park (completed within a couple of months) and celebrating the recognition, by the Maritime Heritage Trust in January of that year, of Bideford and River Torridge becoming one of the fourteen Heritage Harbours in the UK. 

The role of Heritage Harbours, which are led by local community organisations, is to promote awareness and interest in local maritime heritage. Bideford & River Torridge Heritage Harbour incorporates the historically navigable extent of the waterway; from Appledore at the estuary mouth, through the Port of Bideford at the centre and on to the Sealock of the Rolle Canal at Landcross, terminating in the canal basin in Rosemoor RHS Garden, Torrington. 

Thanks to Bideford Town Council, Bideford & River Torridge Heritage Harbour now has a celebration panel, erected on the Harbour Office wall just a few weeks before the next Manor Court on 15 March. An initial design concept, with a map showing the historical waterway and images of vessels, shipbuilding and salmon fishing was created. Bideford Town Council paid for the final graphics, construction and installation of the panel which is a modern, clean looking design, intended to inform and point people to further information with QR code and website links. 

The panel title ‘shaped by the tides, united by heritage’ accurately describes our tidal town. Living on an estuary with the second highest tidal range in the world we are so used to the tide coming in and out that we would never ask ‘where has all the water gone?’ We know it goes out and will come back in a few hours. As water approaches the top of sea walls on spring tides, we might recall the flooding that used to regularly flow down the Quay. In terms of heritage, it is difficult to think of any local history that is not in some way connected to the river, the sea and therefore the tides.

With shipbuilding continuing on the river, the new Appledore Clean Maritime Innovation Centre and the Floating Offshore Windfarms in the Celtic Sea requiring support vessels and port facilities, our future and past are all bound up with tides and the maritime environment.