Everyman

The Keats Connection

This year has seen the 200th anniversary of the period that Keats stayed in Teignmouth. He was here for only two months, arriving on 6th March 1818 after an horrendous journey from London through torrential storms. He had come to look after his brother Tom who had been staying in Teignmouth as part of the ‘treatment’ ofContinue reading “The Keats Connection”

Thomas Bidwill … continued

A few days ago we had a visit from Don Cockman who lives in Torquay and who first contacted us about 18 months ago. Don owns a decorated terracotta plate painted by “T. Bidwill” who, he believed, was buried in Teignmouth Cemetery. So we did some research and with the help of the Teignbridge CemeteryContinue reading “Thomas Bidwill … continued”

First Step Ceremony

Here’s some press coverage about the “First Step Ceremony” we held at the cemetery on Saturday 30th September – Teignmouth Mayor Paul Burgess cut the ribbon to mark the first area in the cemetery where we had been clearing graves. (Full text shown below)

New Page for Stories

As we collect information about some of the people buried in the cemetery we post their stories on this blog. But those stories are mixed in with assorted other posts so there is now a new page “The Stories” which is essentially an index through to the various people we have written about. Try it out!

Georgiana Caroline Barbara Mainwaring

What an incredible story we have unearthed today! On 6 January 1842, 16,000 members of the British Kabul force, the `Army of the Indus’, fled from Kabul under a “shameful capitulation and the illusion of safe-conduct” promised by the eastern Afghan tribes. One week later, on 13 January, Surgeon William Brydon rode alone into Jellalabad,Continue reading “Georgiana Caroline Barbara Mainwaring”

Nature of the cemetery

Although the work we are doing at the cemetery is about clearing the overgrowth from graves we are also very conscious of the wild-life that is present there. The cemetery as an open space is an oasis of nature in the midst of the surrounding housing developments. Whilst paying attention to the graves we would also likeContinue reading “Nature of the cemetery”

Next Steps

The area of the cemetery that we decided to clear first brought an unexpected finding – a row of children’s graves. We believe there are six, although only five have kerbstones which suggests that the sixth is an unmarked grave. Most of the hard clearance work in this area has now been done which begsContinue reading “Next Steps”

Progress Update

Here are a few pictures showing the progress made so far on the main area of graves we have been working on. It has been HARD work, especially trying to eradicate the many years of growth of brambles and ivy, but we’re getting there. The next stage for this area will be to decide howContinue reading “Progress Update”

First Working Party

I missed it!! Thursday May 4th saw the first working party on the first site we had marked out for clearance and I missed it – away in sunny climes. But there was a lot of activity as you can see from the photographs below and I am told that much progress was made. ThanksContinue reading “First Working Party”

Our First Survey

Finally we have our public liability insurance and a completed risk assessment. This means that Teignbridge have now been able to give us official permission to be able to work in the cemetery. Last Thursday a group of us visited the Cemetery to survey the first area which we will be clearing. This gave usContinue reading “Our First Survey”