Appledore is a village at the mouth of the

River Torridge The River Torridge is a river in Devon in England; it rises near Meddon. The river describes a long loop through Devon farming country where its tributaries the Lew and Okement join before meeting the Taw at Appledore and flowing into the Bristo ...

, about 6 miles (10 km) west of

Barnstaple Barnstaple ( or ) is a river-port town in North Devon, England, at the River Taw's lowest crossing point before the Bristol Channel. From the 14th century, it was licensed to export wool and won great wealth. Later it imported Irish wool, bu ...

and about 3 miles (5 km) north of

Bideford Bideford ( ) is a historic port town on the estuary of the River Torridge in north Devon, south-west England. It is the main town of the Torridge local government district. Toponymy In ancient records Bideford is recorded as ''Bedeford'', ''By ...

in the county of

Devon Devon ( , historically known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South West England. The most populous settlement in Devon is the city of Plymouth, followed by Devon's county town, the city of Exeter. Devo ...

, England. It is the home of

Appledore Shipbuilders Appledore Shipbuilders is a shipbuilder in Appledore, North Devon, England. History The Appledore Yard was founded in 1855 on the estuary of the River Torridge. The Richmond Dry Dock was built in 1856 by William Yeo and named after Richmond ...

, a lifeboat

slipway A slipway, also known as boat ramp or launch or boat deployer, is a ramp on the shore by which ships or boats can be moved to and from the water. They are used for building and repairing ships and boats, and for launching and retrieving small ...

and Hocking's Ice Cream, a brand of ice cream only sold in

North Devon North Devon is a local government district in Devon, England. North Devon Council is based in Barnstaple. Other towns and villages in the North Devon District include Braunton, Fremington, Ilfracombe, Instow, South Molton, Lynton and Lyn ...

. The local football club is Appledore F.C. The ward population at the 2011 census increased to 2,814.

History

Appledore is not mentioned in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...

of 1086 (though it mentions two other, smaller, Appledores in Devon). Its earliest recorded name, in 1335, is ''le Apildore in the manor of Northam''. There was a

Saxon The Saxons ( la, Saxones, german: Sachsen, ang, Seaxan, osx, Sahson, nds, Sassen, nl, Saksen) were a group of Germanic * * * * peoples whose name was given in the early Middle Ages to a large country (Old Saxony, la, Saxonia) near the Nor ...

settlement, but the Devon historian WG Hoskins says of the local legend that it was the site of a

Viking Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and se ...

raid in 878 AD, 'there is no authority for this identification'. The settlement prospered as a port in the

Elizabethan The Elizabethan era is the epoch in the Tudor period of the history of England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603). Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history. The symbol of Britannia (a female personific ...

period, and some cottages date from this period. The construction of a quay in 1845 further developed the port, and as a result Appledore has a rich maritime heritage from the second half of the 19th century. The painter Edward Calvert was born there in 1799. Shipowner Sir

William Reardon Smith Sir William Reardon Smith, 1st Baronet (7 August 1856 – 23 December 1935) was an English shipowner and philanthropist. Early life Reardon Smith was born in Appledore, Devon, the youngest son of Thomas Reardon Smith, a sailing ship captain, and ...

was born in Appledore and went to the Wesleyan school there. The Richmond Dry Dock was built in 1856 by William Yeo and named after Richmond Bay in

Prince Edward Island Prince Edward Island (PEI; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is the smallest province in terms of land area and population, but the most densely populated. The island has several nicknames: "Garden of the Gulf", ...

, where the Yeo family's shipping fleet was based. From 1882 until the 1930s it was owned by Robert Cook, and continued in use until the 1960s. It is a Grade II*

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern I ...

. There is a

maritime museum A maritime museum (sometimes nautical museum) is a museum specializing in the display of objects relating to ships and travel on large bodies of water. A subcategory of maritime museums are naval museums, which focus on navies and the milita ...

in the village chronicling the history of shipbuilding and seafaring in the village. Appledore Lifeboat Station 2017

A lifeboat service for the area around the mouth of the

River Taw The River Taw () rises at Taw Head, a spring on the central northern flanks of Dartmoor, crosses North Devon and at the town of Barnstaple, formerly a significant port, empties into Bideford Bay in the Bristol Channel, having formed a large ...

was introduced in February 1825. The boat was kept in the King's Watch House at Appledore for six years until a new boat house was built at Watertown, half a mile nearer the sea. From 1848 a second lifeboat was stationed at

Braunton Burrows Braunton Burrows is a sand dune system on the North Devon coast. It is privately owned and forms part of the Christie Devon Estates Trust (see Tapeley Park). Braunton Burrows is a prime British sand dune site, the largest sand dune system (psamm ...

on the opposite side of the estuary but its crew always came from Appledore. A third station was built at Northam Burrows to the west of Appledore in 1851 and the Appledore boat moved there. A new station at Badsteps allowed Northam Burrows to close in 1889 and Braunton Burrows closed in 1918 as it was difficult to find men and horses to launch the boat.

Appledore Lifeboat Station Appledore Lifeboat Station is the base for Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) search and rescue operations at Appledore, Devon in the United Kingdom. The first lifeboat was stationed in the town in 1825 and the present station was opene ...

was rebuilt in 2001 and is home to an inshore lifeboat; a larger all-weather Tamar class boat is kept moored just off shore.

Railway

The

Bideford, Westward Ho! and Appledore Railway The Bideford, Westward Ho! and Appledore Railway (B, WH & A, R) was a railway running in northwest Devon, England. It is unusual in that although it was built as a standard gauge line, it was not joined to the rest of the British railway netwo ...

(B,WH&A,R) was most unusual amongst British railways in that although it was built as a standard gauge line (4 ft in) it was not joined to the rest of the railway network, despite the

London and South Western Railway The London and South Western Railway (LSWR, sometimes written L&SWR) was a railway company in England from 1838 to 1922. Originating as the London and Southampton Railway, its network extended to Dorchester and Weymouth, to Salisbury, Exeter ...

having a station at

, East-the-Water, meaning on the other side of the

from the main town. The line was wholly situated on the peninsula made up of

Westward Ho! Westward Ho! is a seaside village near Bideford in Devon, England. The A39 road provides access from the towns of Barnstaple, Bideford, and Bude. It lies at the south end of Northam Burrows and faces westward into Bideford Bay, opposite Sau ...

, Northam and Appledore with extensive sand dunes, at the mouth of the Torridge and Taw estuary. Appledore railway station and the whole line closed in 1917 having been requisitioned by the

War Office The War Office was a department of the British Government responsible for the administration of the British Army between 1857 and 1964, when its functions were transferred to the new Ministry of Defence (MoD). This article contains text from ...

(Stuckey 1962).

Sport and leisure

Appledore has a

Non-League football Non-League football describes association football, football leagues played outside the top leagues of a country. Usually, it describes leagues which are not fully professional. The term is primarily used for football in England, where it is s ...

club Appledore F.C. who play at Marshford. Appledore has two pilot Gig clubs in the village, Appledore PGC and Torridge PGC. They both compete in Westcountry regattas and the world championships on the Scilly Isles. Appledore Men's Crews are in the world's top 10.

Transport

Appledore is served by Stagecoach Devon service 21A which runs between Appledore, Northam, Bideford, Instow, Fremington, Bickington, Barnstaple station, Barnstaple, Chivenor, Braunton, Croyde and Georgeham. On Sundays and evenings the 21A goes up to Ilfracombe Stagecoach also runs a circular route called 16 from Bideford to Westward Ho!, West Appledore, Appledore, Square Northam and then back to Bideford.

Gallery

Image:Appledore quay 800.jpg, The quay at Appledore Image:Appledore-shipyard.jpg, A view of Appledore Shipyard from the opposite side of the Torridge

estuary An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea. Estuaries form a transition zone between river environments and maritime environm ...

File:Stmary appledore.JPG,

St Mary's Church, Appledore {{Infobox church , name = Church of Saint Mary , image = File:St Mary's Church, Appledore.jpg , caption = , dedication = Saint Mary , denomination = Church of England , churchmanship = , parish = Appledore , deane ...

File:War Memorial at Appledore, Devon.jpg, A monument to the fallen soldiers of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

File:Appledore-Richmond-Dock-June 2021.jpg, Richmond Dock in June 2021

In popular culture

In his novel ''Westward Ho!'',

Charles Kingsley Charles Kingsley (12 June 1819 – 23 January 1875) was a broad church priest of the Church of England, a university professor, social reformer, historian, novelist and poet. He is particularly associated with Christian socialism, the worki ...

describes Appledore as a "little white fishing village". Nikolai Tolstoy,

Patrick O'Brian Patrick O'Brian, CBE (12 December 1914 – 2 January 2000), born Richard Patrick Russ, was an English novelist and translator, best known for his Aubrey–Maturin series of sea novels set in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars, and cent ...

's stepson, considers that the fictional town of Shelmerston in O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin series may have been based on Appledore. O'Brian's wife Mary Wicksteed grew up in Appledore. In 2008, the

Jackson family The Jackson family is an American family of musicians and entertainers from Gary, Indiana. Many of the children of Joseph Walter (or Joe) and Katherine Esther Jackson were successful musicians, notably the brothers that formed the Motown boy ...

(including

Tito Jackson Toriano Adaryll "Tito" Jackson (born October 15, 1953) is an American musician. He is an original member of the Jackson 5 (later known as The Jacksons), who rose to fame in the late 1960s and 1970s with the Motown label, and later had continued ...

) stayed for six weeks in Appledore while searching for a house to buy in the area. The project was filmed for a Channel 4 documentary ''The Jacksons are Coming'', which was aired on 27 November 2008.

Notes

References

*Stuckey, Douglas (1962). The Bideford, Westward Ho! and Appledore Railway 1901–1917. Pub. West Country Publications.

External links

Appledore village website

Appledore & Instow Regatta website

Appledore Pirates website

Appledore visitor information
* {{authority control Villages in Devon Torridge District