On this day in Wembury — 13 March 1897

On the evening of 13 March 1897, Matthias Dalton Avery—a working cobbler and member of Wembury Parish Council—broke the padlocks that had been fixed on gates across the long-used ways through Stevens Park and Broad Park, fields belonging to Langdon Barton. Avery later admitted he “openly broke the locks,” leaving a rhymed notice objecting to the “ugly stile.”

"If again you lock this gate,
We’ll have it down as sure as fate.
This we’ll do, and then a while,
Rather than climb the ugly stile."

The incident triggered a County Court case heard on 19 November 1897, where a jury found for the occupying tenant, awarding 5s damages and confirming the public footpath right (via the stiles), but not a general right to pass through the gates.

Who was the cobbler? The court report names him Matthias Dalton Avery, aged 50 at the time—so born c. 1846–47—described as both a cobbler and a parish councillor. That identification comes directly from the contemporary report.

Where were Stevens Park & Broad Park? They were field-names within Langdon Barton’s holding. Exact names aren’t used on modern maps, but the locations correspond broadly to the public footpath corridor across Langdon Barton between Wembury village and Knighton, with an “occupation road” (farm track) running between those fields. Today, walkers still follow rights of way across this block of land; the jury in 1897 explicitly tied the public right to the stiles rather than the farm gates.

(Source: Western Morning News, 19 November 1897 — “A Wembury Right of Way. A Poetic Defendant.” reporting Avery’s breaking of the locks on 13 March 1897.)