Thursday 7 November 2019

For the Record. "Bideford 'The Little White Town' in North Devon Dubbed as Racist"

What's the story? "Bideford in Devon changes 'Little White Town' signposts after racist claims"
Bideford made local and national news at the beginning of November and the contraversy spilled over into Social Media and TV culminating in a "Little White Town" debate between Bideford councillor Dermot McGeough, Susanna Reid and Piers Morgan on Good Morning Britain. Catch Up here - https://youtu.be/CPhh8FCDRts

Bideford has been known as the ‘Little White Town’ for more than 150 years after author Charles Kingsley coined the phrase in reference to its large number of white buildings. Here is an extract from Charles Kingsley's description of Bideford - "The Little White Town which slopes upward from its broad river tide" (Scroll down for full description from the novel Westward Ho!). Looking from these photos,  I reckon his words are appropriate. ?.

Bideford "The Little White Town" - Photo copyright Pat Adams (North Devon Focus)
Bideford Long Bridge - view across the River Torridge to the town from East the Water. Photo credit Pat Adams (North Devon Focus 2010)
Bideford "The Little White Town" - Photo copyright Pat Adams (North Devon Focus)
 Bideford Quay - view across the River Torridge to the town from East the Water. Photo credit Pat Adams (North Devon Focus 2010)
Extract Charles Kingsley's description of  Bideford from the novel "Westward Ho"
All who have travelled through the delicious scenery of North Devon must needs know the little white town of Bideford, which slopes upwards from its broad tide-river paved with yellow sands, and many-arched old bridge where salmon wait for autumn floods, toward the pleasant upland on the west.  Above the town the hills close in, cushioned with deep oak woods, through which juts here and there a crag of fern-fringed slate; below they lower, and open more and more in softly rounded knolls, and fertile squares of red and green, till they sink into the wide expanse of hazy flats, rich salt-marshes, and rolling sand-hills, where Torridge joins her sister Taw, and both together flow quietly toward the broad surges of the bar, and the everlasting thunder of the long Atlantic swell.
Charles Kingsley - http://www.westwardhohistory.co.uk/charles-kingsley/
Kingsley Museum at Clovelly https://www.clovelly.co.uk/things-to-do/seeing-clovelly/kingsley-museum/

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