Members and friends attending our October lecture were inspired by a detailed account given by members of Sandford Heritage Group, on their work in recent years. Jim King provided the background to an application to the Heritage Lottery Fund for funds to revitalise a space at the Sandford Parish Church to use for social occasions. Unexpectedly, this led to the formation of the Heritage Group and a grant from them of £44,000. Together with grants from various charities and an astonishing £33,000 from local people, building work was completed in 2009.
Conditions for the grant included a requirement that research would be carried out in three areas: the origin of Sandford church’s magnificent bench ends; a photograph history of the village and the history of farming in the area.
Mary Rose Somerville then gave a fascinating presentation on the bench ends, describing the tests done to determine their age and academic research into their meaning. There was little doubt that the bench ends date from the 16th century, it seemed very likely that they were not installed in Sandford Church originally but probably in Crediton’s parish church. Suggestions of connections with the Spanish Armada and Sir Francis Drake were unlikely to be true.
Pam Tilney Ellis then relayed her experiences of gathering oral histories from local people about life during World War II. She included many amusing episodes of how the mind plays tricks on us as we age. She stressed there was no time to lose! This led to Jean Hope detailing her work on the photographic history of the village. They held many photographs of the village in late Victorian/Edwardian times and this was supplemented by photographs taken from similar points in 1982 by a local school
teacher. The Group were now taking photos of local people in their homes. Together, the collection is being used by Sandford Primary School to help the children understand how things change.
Finally Mike Brett explained research into farming, based on anecdotes provided by local people who had worked in farming many years ago. The first publication has been produced on farming at 10 local farms from 1910-2012 and is on sale at Crediton Museum. A further publication is planned, covering another group of farms.
Mike is the I.T. expert in the group and his audience were fascinated by his having overlaid Victorian tithe maps with the current Ordnance Survey map, showing exactly where buildings and hedges had once stood.
David Nation