September 7 2012
Buckfastleigh Devon
I knew that my 5th great grandmother was born in Exeter in 1752 and was married in Dean Prior Devonshire on the 3rd of June 1781. My work avoiding ancestry.com habit had led me to the village of Buckfastleigh in search of a mystery. The fascinating Henrietta Harriet, my 3rd great grandmother had been sentenced at the Old Bailey and had been sent to Van Diemen’s Land as a 17 year old. It is funny isn’t it – anywhere else in the world a relative in prison would be something to hide but I feel so lucky to have such a wonderfully interesting family background. Well Henrietta had a son Henry Goldsmith who married Ellen Hayman in 1875 (my 2nd great grandmother). Ellen’s family line intrigues me. I wonder whether it is that my wonderful Auntie Nellie (her granddaughter) shared her name and she was such an influential woman in my growing up.
Ellen’s line all come from the small Devon town of Buckfastleigh. The Hayman’s, Lee and Hoare’s seem to go back many generations. Ellen’s father Abraham Hayman– is there a Jewish link? I have a vague memory of Auntie Nellie taking about Barbara Lee (mother of Ellen Hayman). Auntie Nellie’s (and my grandfather Ned) mother was Barbara Lee Goldsmith and I remember her telling me stories of the Lee’s. I was a little girl so my memories are so scant and oh I wish I could remember more.
I set the GPS and drove to Buckfastleigh. A gorgeous small market town, Buck-tied-fast-in-the leigh, was famous as a wool centre and Axminster factories still produce carpet. The Benedictine Abbey is beautiful and the town itself full of postcard images. I wandered the streets thinking about grandparents past.
As I headed out of town I saw the sign to Dean Prior church and thought I would stop. The beautiful 14th century church is on the side of the A38 between Exeter and Plymouth. The flag of St George flying from the bell tower and the chickens wandering amongst the gravestones didn’t prepare me for what I would find.
I blindly wandered in past gravestones and stood in a beautiful church imagining my 5th great grandmother Agnes Hoare being married here in 1781. Was she a blushing 29 year old bride when she married Phillip Lee? She seemed old for a bride of those times and what was her story? A bit surreal to be standing in the same church well over two hundred years later. I sat for a while and wandered out into the spectacular sunshine. Thought I would have a quick look at the graves just outside the church door and found myself surrounded by generations of my family – a tiny graveyard but full of my ancestors; my camera is full of weather beaten gravestones and I can’t wait to while away the hours chasing family that lie beneath the Devon soil.
Donna’s grandmother lived a few minutes walk from my grandma and papa in Victoria Street Eaglehawk and a few minutes drive from Dean Prior I found the village of Ugborough; the site of Donna’s ghosts of past.
Ghosts of grandmothers past
Filed under UK September 2012
Sleeping under the stars 