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Welcome to the Branscombe Project

The Branscombe Project began nearly nineteen years ago. A group of people, some of whom had lived all their lives in Branscombe, others relative newcomers, decided they wanted to find out more about their village and the wider landscape.

The time-span is anywhere from prehistoric times to the present, and the idea is to explore changing landscapes, changing lives, historical materials, and living memories.

We have taped over a hundred interviews, dug in the archives and in the ground, and walked the landscape. People have lent us photographs, documents, postcards and objects.

We put on annual exhibitions, winter talks, documentary dramas and ‘disappeared houses’ walks. We have covered topics as diverse as Branscombe Ghosts, Maps, Farming, Cliff Plats, Orchards, Shops & Trades, the Churchyard, Lace Making, Smuggling, Outside Loos, Road History, School History, Hedgerow Dating, Archaeological Excavation & Field-walking, House & Family Histories, Gardens, the Blackshirts, and the wreck of the Napoli.

Our events and activities are open to all - there is no subscription and no membership list.

We want to make as much of our work available on this website as possible. It will take time. We hope you’ll enjoy what’s here and find it useful.

Links:

St Winifred’s Church Branscombe
East Devon AONB
Sidmouth Herald
Genuki
Devon History Society
Ron Branscombe’s genealogy
Ron Branscombe’s village history

Project News
Emails to the Branscombe Project
East Devon AONB: In the Footsteps of Peter Orlando Hutchinson

The Steamship ‘Ballarat’ bound for Australia one hundred years ago

The Branscombe Diaspora
Your help needed

If you know of anyone who left Branscombe to live in another country in the past, please contact us by email and we will add your stories to our website.

Read what we know so far here ...

WW1 1914-1918

Help needed!

As we approach the centenary of the beginning of the First World War, like many local history groups we are researching what happened in the parish during that time.
We will be presenting our findings as part of this year’s exhibition (see poster on this page for details ).
If you can help us to tell this story by digging into family memories, documents or old photographs, please contact us. We would love to hear from you.

Latest book!

‘Branscombe’s War 1939-1945'

On sale at:

Branscombe Post Office,

The Old Bakery,

      The Sea Shanty

         Paragon Books (Sidmouth)

(See our Publications page)

Also available with all our other publications at our village hall events.

Archived Material
Click here to view index

Help please!

Working the Cliffs - Book

We are researching now for our next book which will come out in 2014. This will include Branscombe’s once famous cliff plats - little growing areas on the cliff face which, more or less, fell out of use by 1970. We already have some wonderful material BUT we would like more!
As this small industry, growing potatoes that competed with the Channel Islands, gradually died away, holidaymakers took over with chalets in the cliffs. However there was an overlap and many tourists took photos of the men at work on their little plots, and, in particular, children loved the donkeys that were the transport these ‘cliff farmers’ used.
Does your family have any photos of this activity from the past? Maybe you have memories you’d be willing to share. If so we would love to hear from you.

This old photo shows Cliffy Gosling, one of the last cliff farmers who died in 1966. Sitting on one of his donkeys is a girl who was on holiday.

Parish Council Photo Archive

The Parish Council Photo Archive has been put on ‘Flickr’ and can be found through this link :

http://www.flickr.com/photos/89802671@N05/page1/

Capturing the Past
In the Present

East Devon AONB
Historic Environment Conference

Saturday 12th April 2014
Norman Lockyer Observatory (Sidmouth)

Click here for Programme & Booking Form

March 31
Monday - 7:30 pm

People & Stone on the Jurassic Coast

Rose Ferraby

Branscombe Project
Winter Talk
Monday April 28 (7:30 pm)
Working the Cliffs

Barbara Farquharson & Sue Dymond
Details to follow...

To contact us please join up our email address in the usual way:
contacts at branscombe project dot org dot uk

HEAP PROJECT

Map Detectives Meet Again

25 Feb 2014

Read a report of the day &
background to this project

As part of our exhibition above we will be having a Singalong Tea Party...