Place:Ilfracombe, Devon, England

Ilfracombe is a seaside resort and civil parish on the North Devon coast, England with a small harbour, surrounded by cliffs. The parish had a population of 11,184 at the UK census of 2011. The parish stretches along the coast from 'The Coastguard Cottages' in Hele Bay toward the east and 4 miles along The Torrs to Lee Bay toward the west. The resort is hilly and the highest point within the parish boundary is at 'Hore Down Gate', 2 miles inland and 860 feet (270 m) above sea level. Ilfracombe was originally in Braunton Hundred. It was an urban district from 1894 until 1974. Since 1974 it has been part of the district municipality known as the North Devon District. [edit] Hele and Hele Bay Hele Bay is a small village and beach just to the east of the town of Ilfracombe. The small village of Hele is inland from the beach. Hele was listed in the Domesday Book of 1086 when the tenant-in-chief was Bishop Geoffrey of Coutances. There is a Grade II Listed corn mill at Hele Bay that dates back to around 1525. (Source:Wikipedia) There are a number of small places around Devon named Hele.

History

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Ilfracombe has been settled since the Iron Age, when the Dumnonii (the Roman name for the inhabitants of the South-West) established a hill fort on the dominant hill, Hillsborough (formerly Hele's Barrow). The origin of the town's name has two possible sources. The first is that it is a derivative of the Anglo-Saxon Alfreinscoma - by which name it was noted in the Liber Exoniensis of 1086. The translation of this name (from Walter William Skeat of the department of Anglo Saxon at Cambridge University) means the "Valley of the sons of Alfred". The second origin is that the name Ilfracombe was derived from Norse illf (bad), Anglo-Saxon yfel (evil ford) and Anglo-Saxon cumb (valley) perhaps from a Celtic source (compare Welsh ), thus 'The valley with the bad ford'.

The manor house at Chambercombe in east Ilfracombe was recorded in the 1086 Domesday Book as being built by a Norman knight Champernon (from Chambernon in France) who landed with William of Normandy. It is also said to be haunted.

Ilfracombe comprised two distinct communities; a farming community around the parish church called Holy Trinity, parts of which date from the 12th century, and a fishing community around the natural harbour formed between Capstone, Compass and Lantern Torrs. It is recorded that the lands by the church were part of the estate owned by Champernowne family, while those by the harbour belonged to the Bouchier family: Earls of Bath.

Because of the natural layout of the harbour, Ilfracombe became a significant safe port (registered port of refuge) on the Bristol Channel. It also had trade routes between Kinsale and Tenby, which made the port stronger. In 1208 it was listed as having provided King John with ships and men to invade Ireland; in 1247 it supplied a ship to the fleet that was sent to conquer the Western Isles of Scotland; 6 ships, with 79 men were sent to support the siege of Calais. Ilfracombe was the last disembarkation point for two large forces sent to subdue the Irish. The building which sits on Lantern Hill by the harbour, known as St Nicholas's Chapel (built 1361) is reputed to be the oldest working lighthouse in the UK; a light/beacon has been there for over 650 years.

The town was also home to the Bowen family. James Bowen was sailing master of , the flagship of Richard, Earl Howe at the 1794 "Glorious First of June" battle. James Bowen was commissioned by Howe for his leadership in the battle. He rose through the levels - commander of , Dreadnought, and in Georgian England titled "defender of Madeira", led the fleet which rescued the British Army at Corunna in the Peninsular War. For his skill in saving the Peninsula army from Napoleon's forces, he was presented to a joint meeting of the Upper and Lower Houses of Parliament to receive the rare honour of record of "grateful thanks of the nation". He retired as a Rear Admiral and Commissioner of the Royal Navy. Captain Richard Bowen (1761–97) James Bowen's younger brother, a commander on , served under Lord Nelson and was killed at the Battle of Santa Cruz de Tenerife (1797). John Bowen (1780–1827), son of Admiral James Bowen, was a naval officer and colonial administrator. He founded the first settlement of Tasmania at Risdon Cove in 1803 - the settlement that later became known as Hobart. Captain John Bowen married Queen Charlotte's niece.

Lieutenant A E Down was initially posted to Ilfracombe to lead a protection ship for HM Customs and Excise. He married a local girl and rose through the officers’ ranks to retire as Vice Admiral. His son joined the navy aged 14 (his first navy kit is on display at National Maritime Museum, Greenwich). In 1802 James Meek married Down's daughter and settled in the town; James Meek was appointed the Comptroller of Victuals to the Royal Navy in 1832. He was knighted and died in Ilfracombe in 1852. (Gentlemen's Gazette)

There was a wooden fortress overlooking the harbour; of this nothing remains except contemporary records and the area designated Castle Hill off Portland Street/Montepellier Terrace.

The novelist Frances Burney stayed in Ilfracombe in 1817. Her diary entries (2 July – 5 October) record early 19th-century life in Ilfracombe: a captured Spanish ship; two ships in distress in a storm; the visit of Thomas Bowdler; and her lucky escape after being cut off by the tide. A few years later in the 1820s, a set of four tunnels were hand-carved by Welsh miners to permit access to the beaches by horse-drawn carriage as well as by foot. Previously access was gained by climbing the cliffs, rounding the point by boat, swimming or at the lowest tides clambering around the rocks of the point. These tunnels led to a pair of tidal pools, which in accordance with Victorian morals, were used for segregated male and female bathing. Whereas women were constrained to a strict dress code covering up the whole body, men generally swam naked. The tunnels are still viewable and are signposted as Tunnels Beaches.

In 1856, writer Mary Ann Evans (pen-name George Eliot) accompanied George Henry Lewes to Ilfracombe to gather materials for his work Seaside Studies published in 1858. In more recent times, actor Peter Sellers lived in the town when his parents managed the Gaiety Theatre; he first stepped on the stage there and reputedly played the drums. Another actor, Terry Thomas visited the town frequently to stay with his sister, and in the same period, Joan Collins and Jackie Collins were schooled here and boarded in the town. In the last two decades, the town has been home to many artists including locally Damien Hirst, and George Shaw a runner up for the Turner Prize. There is an annual art festival when local artists open their homes for visitors to see their work and 7 to 10 permanent art galleries. the town's first lifeboat was bought in 1828 but a permanent service was not available until the Royal National Lifeboat Institution built a lifeboat station at the bottom of Lantern Hill near the pier in 1866. The present station at Broad Street dates from 1996.

In 1911, the Irish nationalist Anna Catherine Parnell (sister of Charles Stewart Parnell) drowned at Ilfracombe and is buried in the churchyard at Holy Trinity.

Alice Frances Louisa Phillips (b. 26 January 1891 at 85 High Street, Ilfracombe) and her father Escott Robert Phillips (b. 1869 Cardiff) held 2nd class ticket No. 2 on the Titanic, and set sail from Southampton on 10 April 1912 heading for New Brighton, Pennsylvania. Alice was rescued in boat 12, but her father was lost in the disaster.

Research Tips

(revised Jul 2021)

• Ordnance Survey Map of Devonshire North and Devonshire South are large-scale maps covering the whole of Devon between them. They show the parish boundaries when Rural Districts were still in existence and before the mergers of parishes that took place in 1935 and 1974. When expanded the maps can show many of the small villages and hamlets inside the parishes. These maps are now downloadable for personal use but they can take up a lot of computer memory.
• GENUKI has a selection of maps showing the boundaries of parishes in the 19th century. The contribution from "Know Your Place" on Devon is a huge website yet to be discovered in detail by this contributor.

• Devon has three repositories for hands-on investigation of county records. Each has a website which holds their catalog of registers and other documents.

• the Devon Heritage Centre at Exeter
• the Northern Record Office at Barnstaple
• the Plymouth and West Devon Record Office at Plymouth which is independent of the other two.

• There is, however, a proviso regarding early records for Devon. Exeter was badly hit in a "blitz" during World War II and the City Library, which then held the county archives, was burnt out. About a million books and historic documents went up in smoke. While equivalent records--particularly wills--are quite easy to come by for other English counties, some records for Devon and surrounding counties do not exist.

• Devon Family History Society Mailing address: PO Box 9, Exeter, EX2 6YP, United Kingdom. The society has branches in various parts of the county. It is the largest Family History Society in the United Kingdom. The website has a handy guide to each of the parishes in the county and publishes the registers for each of the Devon dioceses on CDs.

• This is the home page to the GENUKI Devon website. It has been updated since 2015 and includes a lot of useful information on each parish.
• Devon has a Online Parish Clerk (OPC) Project which can be reached through GENUKI. Only about half of the parishes have a volunteer contributing local data. For more information, consult the website, especially the list at the bottom of the homepage.

• The FamilySearch Wiki provides a similar information service to GENUKI. An index of parishes leads to notes and references for each parish.

• Brett Langston's list of Devon Registration Districts and parishes within each registration district from 1837 to the present can indicate where to find details of civil registration entries since the process began in England.

• Magna Britannia, Volume 6 by Daniel Lysons and Samuel Lysons. A general and parochial history of the county. Originally published by T Cadell and W Davies, London, 1822, and placed online by British History Online. This is a volume of more than 500 pages of the history of Devon, parish by parish. It is 100 years older than the Victoria County Histories available for some other counties, but equally thorough in its coverage. Contains information that may have been swept under the carpet in more modern works.

• There is a cornucopia of county resources at Devon Heritage. Topics are: Architecture, Census, Devon County, the Devonshire Regiment, Directory Listings, Education, Genealogy, History, Industry, Parish Records, People, Places, Transportation, War Memorials. There are fascinating resources you would never guess that existed from those topic titles. (NOTE: There may be problems reaching this site. One popular browser provider has put a block on it. This may be temporary, or it may be its similarity in name to the Devon Heritage Centre at Exeter.)