Grave warning about the condition of the Pebble Ridge

was given by Mr W Badcock at the annual meeting of the potwallopers of the Manor of Northam on Friday. 

Closing the meeting, he told those present that they had paid a great deal of attention to the Burrows, but none to what preserved them. 

Mr Badcock, a local trawler owner, said that the ridge appeared to be getting ‘thinner and thinner’. Even at the end of the war, Mr Badcock contended, it would have almost been possible to drive three double-deck buses across the top of the ridge. The matter

Burrows 'Slum' Complaint To BBC - 13th November 1970

A complaint has been lodged wit the B.B.C., Mr Alan Gardner, Clerk of the Northam Urban Council, revealed this week following a protest from a woman ratepayer about the Burrows being described in a TV progamme as 'an over crowded slum.'
The programme "The Country We Are Making" in which the Duke of Edinburgh took part, went out on B.B.C.2 and dealt with countryside conservation. The Burrows were contrasted with a beautiful area in Scotland.
When the film of the Burrows was screened the narrator, Derek Johns, commented that without planning

Patriot And A German Lover - 15th September 1914

Sir - May I trespass on your kindness by inserting a few remarks in your valuable paper of a man who holds a public position in a village not miles from Bideford re his sentiments and sympathies for the Germans. He has been airing his opinions rather freely in the village street lately and says he 'hopes the Germans will win and that the Kaiser will eat his dinner in London one day this week'. He has also been heard to say that if he saw the Germans coming in over a

The Pebble Ridge at Westward Ho! – the defence Northam Burrows has against the sea – was badly damaged by yesterday morning’s high tide.

The ridge, on which a £60,000 strengthening scheme is in progress, was flattened for much of its length and the Burrows extensively flooded.
The Burrows presented a desolate picture: the first and eighteenth fairways of the Royal North Devon Golf Club course were completely under water and there was extensive flooding on other parts of the Burrows where the sea had swept in over the flattened Ridge. The course was closed. ‘We can claim to be the only

Tipping on the Northam Burrows should be completed by March 1977 it is being recommended to the North Devon Torridge Area Highways Committee in a report by the Devon County Engineer’s Department.

With the County Council’s promotion of the Burrows as a country park it was recognised that arrangements would have to be made to cease tipping, says the report.
Read more in the article dated 17 January 1975

TV Film Ignored Local Efforts - 18th December 1970

It was regrettable that the BBC had contacted neither Northam Urban Council nor the Burrows Committee before featuring the Burrows in a programme on BBC2 that gave a poor impression, Mr John Smith (chairman of the Highways and Amenities Committee) told the Council.