Day 9 - Halberton

Today I managed to make contact with the Halberton Historical Society who kindly invited me to meet with them to discuss our family's origins in Halberton. I took the bus through the rolling green hills of Devon and various small towns passing by Diggerland, which I am sure Pants would have been excited to visit, until I arrived outside the Village Hall.

Halberton is still quite a small village and still has much of it's original character. I had a quick drink in the local pub and then had a wander through the streets. These villages have such small streets and often without footpath - dangerous living indeed. Watching several large tractors reversing into small streets was quite impressive.

I headed for the church to see if I could find any 'Way' headstones in the graveyard. Remarkably I did! I found one for William Way who died in 1921 at the age of 73. Tomorrow I will try and see if I can make a family connection - perhaps on of John Thomas' brothers or perhaps no relation at all. This is the church where John Thomas and Sarah would have been married.

The wonderfully kind people of the Historical Society - Joy, Mike and Linda helped me look through various census and also the records of the church as to what familys owned which lands. Whilst many of the buildings and farms listed as residences of the Ways are no longer in existence I do now know where exactly they are. Also the record that we had as Herne Farm in Ashbrittle (1851 Census) is incorrect and it is actually near Halberton. It also most likely not Herne Farm - unfortunately for this particular census the records show one residence for a large number of people and represents more of an area rather than a particular place.



I hope to be able to get back to see the areas but given the difficulty of transport it might not happen - apologies for that one. Still I have some good information to follow up tomorrow in the Records Library.

The area is famous for it's dairy farming given the lushness of the area. A variety of farming was also undertaken in the area and apple farming being part of that given that wages were paid often in cider.

Back to Exeter and took the chance to do the Red Coat Free Guided Ghost Walk tour ... hope I can sleep tonight!