On this day in Wembury — 30 April 1762
A notice in the Sherborne Mercury announced the forthcoming sale of the entire contents of Wembury House, the seat of William Molesworth, Esq., who had recently died. The sale was set for Monday the 10th of May and promised “all the plate, china ware, and entire elegant furniture of the whole house,” which had been “compleatly furnished no longer since than 1756.” The auction even included a “handsome pleasure yacht, about sixteen tons well found and lately put in good repair.”
Molesworth had belonged to one of Cornwall’s best-known gentry families, with estates across the West Country. His Wembury property, like others of its kind, stood as a symbol of Georgian prosperity and refinement, its rooms filled with imported porcelain, mahogany furniture, and silver plate. The advertisement also mentioned that the Barton of Wembury, with its park, warren, fishery and oysterage, was to be let on a long lease, suggesting that the estate’s ownership or occupancy was passing into new hands.
The reference to a “hind” showing the premises — meaning the estate steward — evokes the social order of the time, when even a sale of household goods could become a public event. Within a few decades Wembury House would change owners again, eventually giving way to the grander 1803 rebuild that still stands today. This 1762 notice captures an earlier chapter, when Wembury’s manor and its genteel comforts were already a fixture of Devon’s landed world.
(Sherborne Mercury, 10 May 1762, dated 30 April 1762)
ON THIS DAY IN WEMBURY – 30 April 1947
In the difficult years just after the Second World War, Wembury Parish Council found itself facing a serious and urgent problem. Large areas of Wembury Beach were still littered with wartime obstructions and possible defence hazards, some of them half-buried in the sand. The Chairman, Captain R P Giles, warned the Council that the situation was now unsafe for families returning to the shoreline after years of restriction.
Councillors heard reports of iron spikes several feet high protruding through the sand, sharp enough to drive straight through a child’s foot. There were even fears that sections of the beach might still be mined, a grim reminder of the coastal fortifications once spread along the South Devon shore. With the summer season approaching and official clearance efforts dragging on, the Council decided the only practical option was to “short-circuit the Government” and take direct local action instead.
A special two-man sub-committee of Capt. Giles and Mr Thompson was formed to pursue alternative and faster ways of getting the hazards removed, reflecting the determination within the village to make the beach safe again for the public. At the same meeting Capt. Giles was narrowly re-elected as chairman, with Capt. L C E Ayre continuing as vice-chairman.
Source, Western Morning News, 30 April 1947.