Promoting awareness of the archaeology and history of north Devon
Promoting awareness of the archaeology and history of north Devon
A History of Hele: A new Website - John Moore (Newsletter No 7 2004)
John Moore is a member of NDAS, who formerly owned a caravan site at Hele Bay near Ilfracombe.
Wishing to answer his visitors’ questions authoritatively, he set about researching the history of the area. This has resulted in the creation of a new website dedicated to the history of Hele. It can be seen online at http://hele.mysite.freeserve.com. The website is the result of a two-year project aided by a Tarka Country Millennium Award, funded by the Millennium Commission via the Lottery.
The website contains a lot of historical information relating to Hele, Ilfracombe and the surrounding area. It is divided into about 30 ‘pages’: representing different historical periods from the Palaeolithic to the present day, and various themes, concerning, e.g., Hillsborough hillfort, smuggling, lime-burning, shipwrecks, Turnpike Trusts, etc.
For NDAS members the most interesting feature is probably the list of references at the end of every page, which often includes quotes from source publications. Originally recorded to support a poor memory, they were included because they provide a useful ‘historical resource’.
A Very Short History of Hele The valley of Hele (NGR SS53-47-) occupies
a ‘triangle’ between two hill ranges and the coast. The hill
ridges either side are thought to be ancient ridgeway routes and are still
used today (Old Barnstaple Road and Oxenpark Lane). Hele seems to have
developed within these boundaries, in several stages, during which the
focus of the community moved up and down the valley.
The earliest evidence of people are a few flints found on Hillsborough, but the first known occupation site is Hillsborough promontory fort, probably built during the late Iron Age and abandoned around 50 AD. This is the only current evidence of settlement in Hele until the Saxon period.
Domesday refers to the Manor of Hela (from Old English healh and meaning ‘at the sheltered valley’) as being held by Edwy in 1066. This Manor was probably a couple of kilometres inland, at or near Comyn farm, south of which are several fields called Yarde on old maps (from OE gyrt, meaning ‘a cultivated area’). Around 1160, the Manor was granted to the Champernoun’s, who may have founded Chambercombe Manor nearby.
Helemyll was ‘newly built’ in 1525, further down the valley nearer to the sea. The Medieval village of Hele grew between it and the farm of Hele Bay Estate (later demolished to build the Gas Works). The first structures near the beach were lime-kilns and although the extensive coastal quarries were worked until at least the 1890’s, Hele was still regarded as a rural idyll in the 1850’s.
The Turnpike road (opened 1868), Ilfracombe Gas Works (opened 1905) and tourism since WW2, are some of the principal economic drivers behind the development of present-day Hele Bay. The focus of the community has now returned to the coast, almost in the shadow of the ancient promontory fort, after nearly 2,000 years.