On this day in Wembury — 25 July 1949

The Parish Council met to tackle two thorny access questions with no reliable records to hand: whether a footpath at Down Thomas was a public thoroughfare, and whether a bridge at Heybrook Bay was privately owned. Councillors resolved to consult Wembury’s oldest inhabitant to settle the matter from living memory. In the same meeting they proposed inquiries into the Parish Council accepting trusteeship of the War Memorial Village Hall. The recourse to eyewitness knowledge captures a transitional moment just before the county-wide definitive mapping of rights of way, when parish business often relied on local testimony to clarify long-used paths and responsibilities.

(Source: Western Morning News, 26 July 1949 — reporting events of 25 July 1949.)