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Abbotsham Church - geograph.org

Abbotsham church.

School room and teacher's residence, Abbotsham. - geograph.org

School room and teacher's residence.

Abbotsham is a village in the English county of Devon. In 2001 its population was 434.

Amenities[]

Abbotsham has one Post Office and General Store. There is a primary school, a church and a pub. There is also a village hall. Private business include a pre-natal scanning clinic. One bus service serves Abbotsham; the Stagecoach 319 from Barnstaple to Hartland. From May to October 2007, Stagecoach Devon ran a commercial service, the 21B, from Barnstaple to Westward Ho! via Abbotsham. However, this service was later withdrawn.

History[]

The area was called Hama in the Domesday Book. The village formed part of the original endowment of Tavistock in the late tenth century, from which it takes its name. St. Helen parish church, originally built by the Normans, was rebuilt in the thirteenth century and features many carved statues and bench-ends.

A mile to the north of the village is Kenwith Castle, built c1760 in the Georgian Gothic style and now part of a hotel complex.[1]

Thomas Arthur VC (real name McArthur), 1835–1902, recipient of the Victoria Cross during the Crimean War, was born in Abbotsham.[2]

Abbotsham Road Station[]

Abbotsham once had its own railway station at Abbotsham Road on the Bideford, Westward Ho! and Appledore Railway, which was built entirely on this peninsula with no direct connection across the River Torridge to the British railway network. The locomotives were furnished with skirts to protect pedestrians as at one point the line ran along the quay at Bideford. The line had eleven halts which largely served visitors visiting the coast or travelling to swim off the beaches around Westward Ho!. The railway, authorised in 1896, was opened as far as Northam by 1901 and to Appledore in 1908. It closed in 1917.[3]

See also[]

  • HMS Abbotsham

References[]

  1. ^ "Kenwith Castle". britishlistedbuildings.co.uk. http://www.britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/en-91332-kenwith-castle-abbotsham. Retrieved 2011-05-27. 
  2. ^ Thomas Arthur
  3. ^ Stuckey, Douglas (1962). The Bideford, Westward Ho! and Appledore Railway 1901-1917. Pub. West Country Publications.

External links[]

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Coordinates: 51°01′N 4°15′W / 51.017, -4.25


This page uses content from the English language Wikipedia. The original content was at Abbotsham. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with this Familypedia wiki, the content of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons License.
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