Bideford
Bideford is a historic port town on the estuary of the River Torridge in north Devon, South West England. It is the main town of the Torridge local government district.
Toponymy
In ancient records Bideford is recorded as Bedeford, Byddyfrod, Bedyford, Bydeford, Bytheford and Biddeford. The etymology of the name means "by the ford," and records show that, before there was a bridge, there was a ford at Bideford where River Torridge is estuarine; and at low tide, it is possible to cross the river by wading on foot.History
Early history
was said to have attacked Devon in the area around Bideford near Northam or near Kenwith Castle, and was repelled either by Alfred the Great or by the Saxon Earl of Devon.The manor of Bideford was recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as held at some time in chief from William the Conqueror by the great Saxon nobleman Brictric, but later held by the king's wife Matilda of Flanders. There were then 30 villagers, 8 smallholders and 14 slaves in Bideford, within the ancient hundred of Merton in Devon. According to the account by the Continuator of Wace and others, in his youth Brictric declined the romantic advances of Matilda and his great fiefdom was thereupon seized by her. Whatever the truth of the matter, years later, when she was acting as regent in England for William the Conqueror, she used her authority to confiscate Brictric's lands and threw him into prison, where he died. The Exon Domesday notes that Bideford and nearby Littleham were held at fee farm from the king by Gotshelm, a Devonshire tenant-in-chief of 28 manors and brother of Walter de Claville. Gotshelm's 28 manors descended to the Honour of Gloucester, as did most of Brictric's.
After the death of Matilda in 1083, Brictric's lands were granted by her eldest son King William Rufus to Robert FitzHamon, the conqueror of Glamorgan, whose daughter and sole heiress Maud FitzHamon brought them to her husband Robert de Caen, 1st Earl of Gloucester, an illegitimate son of Matilda's younger son King Henry I. Thus Brictric's fiefdom became the feudal barony of Gloucester. The Grenville family held Bideford for many centuries under the overlordship of the feudal barons of Gloucester, which barony was soon absorbed into the Crown, when they became tenants in chief.
File:RobertFitzHamon &RichardDeGrenville 1860Window Kilkhampton.JPG|thumb|1860 imaginary depiction of Robert FitzHamon and his younger brother Richard I de Grenville , Church of St James the Great, Kilkhampton, Cornwall
File:GrenvilleArms.svg|thumb|Arms of Grenville, as visible sculpted on the monument to Sir Thomas Grenville in St Mary's Church, Bideford: Gules, three clarions or. These are the canting arms of the de Clare family, Earls of Gloucester, heirs of FitzHamon and overlords of the Grenvilles
Sir Richard I de Grenville was one of the Twelve Knights of Glamorgan who served in the Norman Conquest of Glamorgan under his elder brother Robert FitzHamon, the first Norman feudal baron of Gloucester and Lord of Glamorgan from 1075. He obtained from FitzHamon the lordship of Neath, Glamorgan, where he built Neath Castle and in 1129 founded Neath Abbey. Richard de Grenville was one of three known sons of Hamo Dapifer Sheriff of Kent, an Anglo-Norman royal official under both King William the Conqueror and his son King William Rufus. He is by tradition the founder and ancestor of the prominent Westcountry Grenville family of Stowe in the parish of Kilkhampton in Cornwall and of Bideford in Devon.
By tradition Richard de Grenville is said by Prince, to have founded Neath Abbey and bestowed upon it all his military acquisitions for its maintenance, and to have
However, according to Round "no proof exists that Richard I de Grenville ever held the manor of Bideford, which was later one of the principal seats of the West Country Grenville family. It was however certainly one of the constituent manors of the Honour of Gloucester granted by King William Rufus to Robert FitzHamon." Richard de Grenville is known to have held seven knight's fees from the Honour of Gloucester, granted to him either by his brother FitzHamon or by the latter's son-in-law and heir Robert, 1st Earl of Gloucester. Round supposes instead that the Grenvilles of Bideford and Stowe were descended from a certain "Robert de Grenville" who was a junior witness to Richard's foundation charter of Neath Abbey, and who in the 1166 Cartae Baronum return was listed as holding one knight's fee from the Earl of Gloucester, feudal baron of Gloucester. Robert's familial relationship, if any, to Richard is unknown.
A charter was granted in 1272 to Richard V de Grenville by King Henry III, which created the town's first council. In ancient records Bideford was recorded as a borough; but it only returned members to Parliament during the reigns of Edward I and Edward II.
1500–1700
The Grenville family were for many centuries lords of the manor of Bideford and played a major role in the town's development. The monument with an effigy of Sir Thomas Grenville exists in St Mary's Church. His great-great-grandson Sir Richard Grenville, the captain of the Revenge, was born in the manor house in Bideford, formerly situated on the site of numbers 1–3 Bridge Street. He built himself a new mansion on the quayside in 1585. The family had another seat at Stow House, Kilkhampton, near Bude in Cornwall. Grenville played a major role in the transformation of the small fishing port of Bideford in North Devon into what became a significant trading port with the new American colonies, later specialising in tobacco importation. In 1575 he created the Port of Bideford. Grenville was never elected as Mayor of Bideford, preferring instead to support John Salterne in that role, but he was Lord of the Manor, a title held by the Grenvilles since 1126 and finally ceded by his descendants in 1711 to the Town Council he established. On his return from Roanoke Colony Grenville's ship Tiger captured a Spanish galleon the Santa Maria de San Vicente off Bermuda in late August 1585. The Spanish prize was brought into Bideford with riches valued at around 15,000 pounds. Grenville also brought a Native American "Wynganditoian" from Roanoke Island with him after returning from a voyage to America in 1586. Grenville named this Native American tribesman Raleigh after his cousin Sir Walter Raleigh. Raleigh converted to Christianity and was baptised at Saint Mary's Church on 27 March 1588, but died from influenza during his residence in Grenville's house on 2 April 1589. His interment was at the same church five days later. Sir Richard Grenville's great-grandson, Sir John Granville, helped restore Charles II to the throne, and in 1661 Charles made Sir John Granville Baron Granville of Bideford and Earl of Bath.During the English Civil War, Bideford stood with the Parliamentarians against the Royalist forces of Charles I. Following a series of Royalist successes in the South West during 1643, the Parliamentarians withdrew into Bideford and its two small fortresses, one of which was Chudleigh Fort. Here they were besieged. After further Royalist victories it became clear that Bideford would not be relieved, and in August 1643 it was stormed by Royalist forces. Following fierce fighting around the two forts, the town fell.
In 1646, 229 people in the town were killed by the plague. It was suggested that a Spanish vessel laden with wool which docked at the quay may have brought this plague to Bideford, and that it was children playing with the wool who first got infected with the plague. Victims were buried from 8 June 1646 to 18 January the next year. After the revocation of the Edict of Nantes and the expulsion of French Protestants from France a considerable number of them immigrated to Bideford, and they brought a lot of new trades to the town, including silk weaving.
In the 16th century the merchant and ship owner John Strange was born in the town. When he was in his youth, he fell from a cliff yet did not suffer any injury, then later on in his life someone fired an arrow at his forehead, but it did not penetrate his skull, and the only lasting damage was a scar. Once a malicious person tried to throw him over the Long Bridge, the walls of the bridge being very low, but was unexpectedly and luckily interrupted.
Witch trial
The Bideford witch trial in 1682 involved three women, Temperance Lloyd, Mary Trembles and Susannah Edwards, accused of witchcraft and which resulted in one of the last hangings for witchcraft in England.1800–1939
In 1816 a mob forced their way into Bideford prison to try and break out some of the mob's ringleaders, and soldiers from the Royal North Devon Yeomanry had to be mustered, and then patrolled the town, where they arrested several members of the mob who were then escorted to Exeter. In 1835 the Bideford Poor Law Union was founded; followed by the building, in 1837, of the Bideford workhouse in Meddon Street. The workhouse had a 40-bed infirmary and would later become Torridge Hospital and, eventually, a residential building. In 1830 it was reported that 5000 people waved farewell to ships leaving Bideford for New York City, Montreal, and St. Andrews. Between the years 1840 and 1900 2,467 people emigrated to Canada and 248 to the United States aboard ships from Bideford.The population of Bideford in the 1841 census was 3,830. There were 9 or 10 shipbuilding yards in the 1840s.
In 1847 a horse-drawn omnibus taking people to a fair in Torrington fell off Bideford Quay into the River Torridge, and eight people were drowned. The book "Kingsley's County" put the expansion and growth of Bideford down to the publication of Charles Kingsley's romance Westward Ho! in 1855. There was an extension of the London and South Western Railway from Barnstaple in 1856. The Pannier Market opened in 1884. In 1902 the first car arrived in Bideford: it was owned by Dr E.J. Toye, the car being a 4-1/2 hp Benz.