Landkey Village

The planned expansion of Whiddon Valley/Westacott application number 62187 will come to the next Parish Council meeting on 4th Jan at 7.30 pm.

This development will impact our village and we invite any parishioners to attend and give their views. The details can be viewed on the NDDC website planning portal.

The nave of St Paul's Church was transformed into a Christmas-themed scene during the Christmas Tree Festival which ran from 9th-11th December.

Local organisations responded to our invitation to enter trees into the festival and these included Landkey Horticultural Society, Mothers' Union, Landkey United Fellowship, Landkey Guides, Landkey Brownies, Swimbridge Nursing Home, Landkey Village Hall, Landkey Parish Council, and Landkey Millennium Green.

Visitors to the church were invited to vote for the tree which they considered to be best decorated and the winner was Swimbridge Nursing Home. Donations and the accompanying raffle raised a total of £129.

We are grateful to the organisations for their trees and for their time and effort in creating such an eye-catching seasonal display. Thanks are also extended to Lyncroft Stores for helping to sponsor this event and to all who visited and helped to raise funds for the church.

The recounting of the fate of a North Devon soldier on the battlefields of Northern France in World War One helped to make Landkey’s Act of Remembrance seem a little more real this year than had been possible on previous occasions.

Following a service of remembrance in St Paul’s Church on Sunday 13th November, around 70 residents of Landkey gathered beside the village war memorial to pay their respects to soldiers from all wars who have died while fighting in the defence of their country.

Led by Reader Chris James, the Act of Remembrance began with a brief reading by Charles Waldron from a note accompanying a wreath left by the family of Private Charles H Cornish. In 2015, the family had laid the wreath at Landkey’s war memorial following their visit to Northern France to coincide with the centenary of the death of the “uncle that they never knew”.

The note revealed that Private Charles H Cornish had joined the 1st Battalion Devonshire Regiment but was fatally wounded at Maricourt, France, on 13th October 1915. His was the only fatality recorded that day. The note went on to reveal that T J Gratton and R G Lock, whose names are also recorded on Landkey’s memorial, were awarded the Military Medal for gallantry. Four Grattons died in WW1 and they were known to be the sons of William and Thirza Gratton, who had six sons.

Landkey is grateful to the descendants of Private Cornish for providing a valuable insight into the people behind the names which are recorded on the village’s memorial and thereby helping to make this year’s service more poignant than might otherwise have been possible.

Wreaths at the memorial were laid by Michael Gee BEM by invitation of Landkey Parish Council and by Peter Elder on behalf of St Paul’s Church. Mike Foster provided a reading of Laurence Binyon’s “For the Fallen”. The Kohima Epitaph was read after a recording of the Last Post had been played.

Help given by others was also appreciated, including those who stopped the traffic for the duration of the Act of Remembrance.

Nearly twenty people attended the meeting on restoring the special Landkey carolling tradition in a modern form. The Wren Trust, (folk music experts), Landkey School and Newport School want to be involved, and now we need to develop plans and raise serious money, so the target is the run-up to Christmas 2017, not this year.

If you want to help or know more please contact Michael Gee, 831462, m.gee320@btinternet.com .

Observant residents of the village and churchgoers may notice that the church clock has stopped. On Sunday 9th October after the morning service its mechanism was halted to allow a steeplejack to gain access to the face of the clock in order that a new dial may be fitted.

In January 2015, during a violent thunderstorm, the church was struck by lightning causing significant damage to the clock and roof. Much of the damage has already been repaired but the shattered dial is one of the last items to be replaced and we hope that this can be achieved successfully in the next week or so.