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 Long Bridge - view across the River Torridge to the town from East the Water. Photo credit Pat Adams (North Devon Focus 2010)
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/
Facebook Post 1st November -
