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Shipbuilding Harland and Wolff Whilst we all want shipbuilding at Appledore to continue, the news that Spanish shipbuilder Navantia is in line to buy Harland and Wolff has had a mixed reception. Some say it should be the UK Government that should step in to safeguard a national industry. In Belfast, there is a particularly…
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Upstream of Bideford Long Bridge, the river has seen a lot of activity in the last few weeks. Each year Skern Lodge takes around six thousand young people to canoe and raft from the steps at Little America and travel downstream through the Long Bridge and Bideford Harbour – they are the largest annual number…
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Apparently the 2024 tourist season has not been a good one locally. National press reports have quoted a Bideford business as ‘hanging on by a thread’. The Director of Visit Devon says there have been ‘serious declines’ in tourist numbers throughout the county. Inflation has put pressure on family budgets while poor UK weather and…
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What can be done about the quality of our river water? We have written before about how important clean water is to us here in Torridge, not just to safeguard the health of rowers, paddleboarders and others – human and animal – who use the river, but because the Torridge underpins our identity and our…
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Publicity about the Appledore Book Festival mainly focusses on the big names who will be gracing our much-loved coastal village this September. But alongside Rick Stein, Nigel Planer, and Judy Murray, there is plenty of exciting local interest too. Wednesday 18th is dedicated to ‘Seafaring: Past, Present, and Future’ when our Chair Mike Teare – the…
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So, Brunswick Wharf Mark 2 has now got planning permission, Torridge District Council has joined the Northern Devon Railway Alliance, and the clock on St Mary’s Church is back doing what it is supposed to do which is to tell the time. It seems like everything is happening in a rush now before the summer…
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So, we have a new government. We await with interest what it will mean for the future of the projects lined up in Torridge for consideration under the Conservatives’ Levelling Up Partnership funding to tackle regional inequality. Labour have said that the Levelling Up policy has failed and were reportedly intending to axe the phrase,…
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Among the many services the late Peter Christie performed for Bideford was the publication of an excellent book on our collar industry. From the 1870s to the 1920s, generations of local people – mainly women – worked in factories producing detachable starched collars which were sold all over the UK and as far afield as…
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Some of us woke the other morning to find that an exceptionally high spring tide – 6.7 metres – had flooded the development site at Brunswick Wharf. The huge area of water made a pretty sight in the winter sunshine, but it also raises questions about the robustness of our flood defences as the earth…
Bideford and River Torridge Heritage Harbour 