WOODBURY PARISH COUNCIL cont’d/...

Planning

Woodbury Parish Council is a consultee for all planning applications within the Parish and applications are considered by Members at a Full Council or a Planning Committee meeting. Results can be found on the East Devon website: https://planning.eastdevon.gov.uk/online-applications/

Our Meetings

Our Full Council meetings are normally on the second Monday of each month excluding August and our Committee meetings usually the last Monday in each month (excluding August and December). A schedule is on our website. Meetings are held at the Church Rooms in Woodbury and start at 19.30. All residents are welcome to attend.

Below is a direct link to the Minutes of our Full Council Meetings, which can be found on our website along with other committee minutes - https:// woodburyparishcouncil.gov.uk/parish-council/council-business/councilmeetings/full-council.

Parish Defibrillators

The Parish Council owns and maintains three defibrillators across the Parish:

 outside the Parish Office in Woodbury.

 at the side of The Digger’s Rest in Woodbury Salterton.

 outside The Puffing Billy in Exton.

Weather Report For March

The first week of the month continued the unusual six week period of winter drought mentioned in last month’s report. However, after Tuesday 7th, rain became frequent and sometimes very heavy; Wednesday 8th was very wet, 26mm or one inch. Also the last three days contributed 1.5 inches, to a total of 132mm or 5.2 inches!

The average monthly amount over the previous four years, and also my long-term average over 22 years here at Ebford is 56mm (2.2 ins). Gardens and fields are now sopping wet, but reservoirs must at last be filling.

Last year the dry second half of March was followed by a very dry April, real amounts of rain only coming along in the merry month of May.

Norman Cann

Roundandabout Congratulations

I am sure that everyone in the village will be delighted that Chris Lear has been recognised for her charity work, fund-raising many thousands of pounds for FORCE over decades - cream teas, big breakfasts, sales and other events. She has been honoured too for organising so many village events and celebrations which we have all been able to enjoy. She has become the Events Tsar of Woodbury.

After the Coronation events and her attendance at the Buckingham Palace Garden Party, we will have an interview with Chris to find out all about it. Congratulations Chris, a well deserved honour which we all most heartily endorse.

Lin Milsom-Ashby

GREAT DEVON BREAKFAST

SATURDAY 20 MAY, 08.00 to 11.30

WOODBURY VILLAGE HALL

Tickets £6, children 12 and under £4

Tickets can be bought at the door but it does help with the catering to buy tickets before the day. Tickets available from Chris Lear.

Thank you for your support for our local cancer charity FORCE.

01395 232772 / 07941045918 chrisalear06@gmail.com

The History Of Brewers And Maltsters In Woodbury

Ale was brewed using malted barley, yeast and water, whereas beer was the drink made, from the 15th century in England, with the addition of hops, though the terms ales and beer were used to describe both methods. Beer brewed for sale was probably made with hops but that made on the farm for home consumption could still be the simple ale, known as small beer. This was made from the second ‘runnings’ from the stronger beer mash, which was an economic measure in household brewing in England until the 18th century. As a consequence it was possible to consume much greater quantities of the ale or beer. The earliest records I have found in the parish of Woodbury of men named as having an inn or holding a licence were Thomas Ballemont in 1604, and in 1627 and 1630 of William Way and Philip Plympton, described as brewers or maltsters, who were taken before the Manor court charged with giving short measures. Ballemont lived at what is now called Ballymans Cottage, and William Way at the brewhouse called Franks (now one of the Beals Cottages), beside the Village Green. Water was always available in the parish and there was an abundance of wells and pumps, so this ingredient was easily acquired. Many of the farmers grew barley, as can be seen from inventories and other documents. The vital ingredient of malt from this home-grown barley was bought from the local malt house, known as Elliots. This malt house was in operation until the end of the 19th century when it had become a brewery as well. By the early 20th century it had been bought by a brewery in Exeter and became a public house known as ‘The Maltsters’. A bill dated 1753 records that £4.5s.0d was owing to Sarah Pym for 28 bushels of malt bought over a three month period. Sarah Pym must have been the owner of Elliotts when it was a freehold malt house. This would have done a roaring trade as it was used by all the farmers in the parish who brewed their own beer for their families and for their workers, as well as for the inns and beer houses in the parish. Most farms were a mixture of pasture and arable and the farmers would have grown their own barley for malting.

Part of the Malt House and its contents were burned down in 1796; the report showed that there were 230 bushels of dry malt and 153 couch bushels of green malt destroyed. This information came to light when the owner was attempting to get a refund for the duty, amounting to £23.2s.6½d, which he had paid – the magistrates ordered a reimbursement for him. A tax had been imposed on malted barley since the 17th century to raise money towards the cost of various military and naval conflicts. A bushel of malted barley weighed approximately 50lbs, and a hogshead of cider or beer was about 60 gallons.

As the social importance and number of inns increased cider gradually became the drink made by farmers for family and workers in preference to beer – until the 20th century there was an abundance of orchards in the parish, and as can be seen from documents many farmers had the equipment for making and storing cider. The inventories of the possessions evaluated on an owner’s death listed items connected with brewing or cider making. In 1690 a wool-comber in the parish left two hogsheads of cider. In an inventory, dated 1691, of John Hill of Postlake Farm are listed 11 bushels of barley on the floor of the entry chamber, as well as barley in the barn. In other rooms are listed an old hogshead and two beer barrels. In the same year Thomas Scott of Woodmanton Farm left 16 hogsheads and seven barrels. In Woodbury Salterton John Dagworthy’s inventory, dated 1695, recorded wheat and barley in the barns and in the ground, as well as one hogshead of cider, one empty hogshead and one empty cask. Patcha Kerswell, in 1707, left a brewing vat, and a hogshead and barrel. In 1716 John Saunders left a hogshead and two barrels. When Nathaniel Langley was convicted of murder in 1727 all his estates and possessions were confiscated by the Lord of the Manor, and a full list was made of them. There is a comment at the end of the inventory that since several hogsheads of cider were drunk at Mallacks Farm during the survey of the property and also at Lamb Park Farm (two of Langley’s estates) the hogsheads were spoiled since the servants filled up the containers with water, replacing the cider they had drunk. It is likely that certain items ‘disappeared’ in other cases at many of the estates before the evaluations were complete.

THE HISTORY OF BREWERS AND MALTSTERS IN WOODBURY cont’d/...

It was essential for a farmer to brew his own beer or cider as it was laid down by statute in 1695 that all husbandry servants and labourers should receive not more than 6d a day with meat and drink, but without refreshments to receive 12d daily – this amount would vary by a few pennies at different times of the year. Over the years this wage would have been raised slightly, but agricultural labourers were always the poorest paid of all workmen.

In auction sales for farms advertised in the newspapers, mention is often made of cidermaking equipment: in a sale in 1841 at Exton Farm are listed a cider press and engine, cider kieves and cans; twenty years later at Postlake Farm a small double iron-screw cider press and hand engine, four hogsheads of cider, some empty casks, tubs, pails, funnels etc; and in 1901 at Exton Farm a pound house with double screw pound, apple engine and horse wheel, apple chamber and cellar. In recent years some of these cider presses have survived in the barns of some properties in the parish. Until a few years ago cider was still being made in the traditional way at Gilbrook, Woodmanton Farm and Lower Mallacks.

From 1795 a thriving business developed in Woodbury making various sized barrels for the large amount of cider being made when Richard Kenwood moved into the village and set up his cooperage in Ballymans Cottages. There must have been other coopers over the centuries in the parish but no record has survived. The importance of these barrels is shown in the number of references to them included in the possessions of farmers. Sadly, the days of self-sufficiency in the villages disappeared long ago, and pubs are all owned now by the big breweries or other drink companies some of them have a licensee to run them, but often just a manager of the establishment. Pubs are tied to the company which owns them and do not have the freedom to shop around for their stock as a result of which supermarkets and privately run stores are able to buy far cheaper than the tied pubs can do. We are lucky in the parish to still have public houses, though there have been recent ‘hiccups’ – Exton has The Puffing Billy, Woodbury Salterton has The Digger’s Rest, and Woodbury has The Maltsters and The White Hart. Pubs cannot rely on serving just drinks and must make their profits by producing food, as can be seen in our parish. The change to the law which affected all drinking establishments was the ‘drinkdriving’ Act, of which the country pubs were the biggest victims. With thanks to Roger Stokes for two of his many photographs of cider making at Woodmanton Farm. Gill Selley

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