Devon Village

How did people live in Christow in the 19th century? How much was the isolation of Valley life a factor in its development? An attempt at getting closer to the people living in the 19th-century village is laid out in terms of demography and occupations reported in the early part of the book, whilst the latter parts explore what they did for entertainment and education, and a look at how they kept the community together in terms of moral rectitude whilst looking at when things went wrong with crime and poverty. This book presents evidence gained from local sources and from documents held in the Southwest Heritage Trust record office in Exeter. All proceeds will go to the running of the Teign Valley History Centre run by the Teign Valley Museum & Archive Trust. The Trust is accumulating archives to prevent loss and will make them available to the general public. Further artefacts must still be hidden in houses and the Trust is always open to receiving these for preservation and sharing. The author, who is chair of the Trust, is a retired GP who embraced the study of local history on retirement. Ten years ago, he founded the Teign Valley History Group, which meets every two months for talks on historical matters of local interest and which runs a group looking at house histories in an area which has an amazing collection of old, often thatched, listed buildings. The author has also published a book, Teign Valley Tales, of memoirs of older people who have lived in the Valley for most of their lives. He holds an Advanced Diploma in Local History from Oxford (online).