ONE THOUSAND YEARS

Evening Star, Issue 20666, 13 December 1930, Page 22

ONE THOUSAND YEARS

MILLENARY OF BARNSTABLE KING ATHELSTAN’S CHARTER. Barnstaple, in Devonshire, claims to be the oldest borough in Britain, by reason of a charter, with the right to hold market and fair, granted by King Athelstan in 830, when the town was a typical Saxon burgh and tbo centre for the defence of the subshire of North through the centuries Barnstaple has figured prominently in national affairs. The river Taw, on which a picturesque water Carnival was held recently, links the town with Elizabethan days, when five ships sailed over Barnstaple bar to join Drake’s fleet against the Spanish Armada. Visitors to-day are shbwn with pride tho Bell Hotel, the hostelry patronised bv Sir Richard Grenville,, whose headquarters were in Bnrnstaple during the war with Spain. John Gay, poet and dramatist, whoso ‘Beggar’s Opera has made his memory immortal, was born in* Barnstaple. His birthplace in Joy street is the object of much interest. The inhabitants of Barnstaple and the wide agricultural district around have participated in a week’s millenary celebrations. At u service in Rock Park massed choirs led the singing of hymns, including “King of_ Kings Eternal, written by the late Vicar of Barnstaple, tho Rev. Richard Turner, and set to inusic by Dr Henry J. Edwards, the well-known composer and Barnstaple’s oldest freeman. The commemoration of the millenary took tho form of a considerable park extension, on which will be constructed swimming bath, sun-bathing • terraces, children’s boating lake, anti landscape gardens. A millenary stone of granite of “tho shire of sea kings ” will overlook the ageless river Taw, and will bear tbo simple inscription:— MILLENARY STONE. 930—1930. The children of Barnstaple later produced fi pageant representing tho past ten centuries of tho town’s life.