WOODY BAY
By HARRIET BRIDLE

ISBN: 1-900467-27-5
Size: 210mm x 148mm (approx), 224pp
Softback, colour cover,
over180 black and white images

Available by post from:
Mrs Harriet Bridle
Delabole Cottage
The Ball
Minehead
Somerset TA24 5JJ
United Kingdom

Telephone 01643 702509
Email harron.bridle@virgin.net

Price: £9.95 plus post & packing:
UK First Class £1.55
UK Second Class £1.40
Europe £3.00
Rest of the World £4.70

Travellers along the A39 over Exmoor in North Devon will come across a recently restored section of the famous narrow gauge Lynton & Barnstaple Railway at Woody Bay Station, but how many know the history of the small coastal community from which the station takes its name?

Harriet Bridle, for a long time a resident of Woody Bay, has written a new and completely updated version of her popular book 'Woody Bay', first published in 1991.

Harriet's book gives the feel of this remote North Devon inlet together with its historical background. The book offers literary and artistic views of the Bay and the local area seen through the eyes of other writers and artists in the past and present.

'Woody Bay' also presents miniature portraits and reminiscences of local people of both those who have died and those still living. It describes the Railway and touches on folklore and other similar unusual subjects.

This book encompasses most of her earlier material as well as much that is new about the old as well as the more recent history of Woody Bay. Harriet has delved further into the history of the early landowners from the mid-18C - those who owned or leased Wooda Bay House - the Throckmortons, the Sanfords and the enigmatic and ill-famed Colonel Benjamin Greene Lake, the would-be developer of the Martinhoe Manor Estate, and Charles Frederick Bailey who purchased the Wooda Bay Building Estate in 1900.

In this her second book about Woody Bay Harriet has written more about the farming families of Woody Bay and Martinhoe, the village above the Bay. These are the Blackmore family, to which the novelist R.D. Blackmore belonged, as well as the Ridds of Martinhoe Town Farm (including John Ridd and Lorna Doone Ridd!), the Dovells, the Crangs and to a lesser extent, the Dallyns, amongst others.

With 224 pages and over 180 images, many never previously published, 'Woody Bay' will be a fascinating read for anyone with a wider interest in Exmoor, North Devon, and the area in general.

The author overlooking Woody Bay
from her cottage in 1992