Basil Pidgeon
Basil Pidgeon was recorded by another volunteer at the Bideford & District Community Archive in 2020
More information on Mr Langford can be found AT THIS LINK and HERE
January 1968
The famous 700-year-old Long Bridge collapsed in early January 1968. One of the Archive's volunteers chats, in 2020, about his reminiscences in this YouTube link:
no shoes on, the mud squelching between your toes, avoiding the sharp stones and broken glass. Paddling across the gut when the tide went out to play in the ponds, and rushing back as the tide came in before the gut filled with water from the incoming tide. I could not swim and would have been in trouble if the timing was wrong. When eventually I learnt to swim my friend and me would swim from Bell Slip to the Quay slip, which was quite dangerous as there was a strong current on the
…Lady Anne Berry talks to Sue Scrutton about Rosemoor:
To many North Devonians Rosemoor, Torrington, is well known as the home of Col J E Palmer, who has given long and valued service to the county of Devon. But many people, too, know Rosemoor equally well for its beautiful gardens created during the past 15 years by his wife Lady Anne, a noted horticulturist.
Born in Norfolk and daughter of the late Earl of Orford, Lady Anne’s earliest memories of the house are from childhood visits in the
Built around 1885
The house on the cliff edge known locally as ‘Spooky House’ or even ‘Haunted House’ was built about 1885. The road was especially built to enable access to the house and was initially known as Seafield Road; later it became Merley Road.
The house was built as a summer residence by Brinsley de Courcey Nixon
(5 May 1825-18 April 1903) whose occupation on the 1881 Census was a ‘banker’ from London. Of Irish and Scottish descent he was born in Edinburgh and died in 1903 whilst on holiday at Seafield. There were 4 children from his