What a collection of ceremonial regalia was in evidence when Bideford’s Manor Court met in the Town Hall last Saturday 15 March! Bideford Town Band played in the balcony and welcomed the Mayor in full regalia, a bewigged Town Clerk, Beadle, Town Crier, councillors and guests, including Chair of Torridge District Council and Mayors from Northam and Great Torrington. 

Dating back to medieval times, the Manor Court, once known as the ‘Court Leet’, was a place for townspeople to voice their concerns. Today, it’s a chance for Bideford residents to submit ideas to improve the town. 

Whilst the jury was out, deliberating on the 2025 presentments, John Puddy entertained the audience with a presentation about the Bideford based heritage steamship Freshspring. Quoting the John Masefield poem ‘Cargoes’, he related how the last verse ‘Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack, butting through the Channel in the mad March days’, referred to all the vessels like Freshspring that were the seagoing white transit vans of their day – bringing the essentials like coal, rails, firewood, iron-ware, and cheap tin trays to communities around the country. 

Freshspring’s role as a water carrier for the navy, replenishing much bigger warships with the deionised water needed for high performance steam turbines, was an essential but unsung role that kept the navy operational at sea. Now, with nearly all the coaster fleet scrapped, Freshspring is considered by National Historic Ships to be of ‘extreme national importance’, representing with her size, engine type and construction, that fleet of coasters that once voyaged around the coasts. She is also the only vessel of this type in sufficiently good condition to be able to go back to sea. 

John highlighted the partnerships that made possible her journey in 2016 from a breakers yard in the Severn to Bideford, and the subsequent work of volunteers to bring her to her current state. The prospect of future co-operation with Appledore Shipyard to develop usable space below decks and the possibility of clean electric power propulsion were tantalising glimpses into the future. 

The jury returned with the presentments for the Town Council to consider: celebrating VE day, creating a memorial to refugees, replacing the Bideford charter, displaying a copy of twelve-foot-long eighteenth century map of the Torridge, and a water bottle filling station in Victoria Park. More about progress with these later in the year.