SAVE THE YARCOMBE INN SPECIAL ISSUE

Yarcombe Voices SPECIAL ISSUE No. ONE JULY 2017 The Campaign Begins! Yarcombe Parish Council launched its Campaign on behalf of the community to save The Yarcombe Inn, at midnight on Wednesday 12th July. The Campaign committee consisting of four Parish Councillors and many skilled and professionally experienced volunteers has devised a rolling programme of work and activities, aimed at procuring, refurbishing and re-opening the Inn as an innovative Community Enterprise. ThisspecialeditionofTheVoicesisthefirstofmanyinitiativesthatwilltakeplaceinthecomingmonths. Pleaseread all about it here and then visit the Yarcombe website at www.yarcombe.net for regular updates and links to campaign activities. Whatever you do, however, please visit our crowdfunder website at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/yarcombe-inn-east-devon-community-project and pledge what you can towards the cost of bidding to buy the building. Finally if you can volunteer or run an event to raise funds to “Save The Yarcombe Inn“ then every contribution will take us closer to our target. Together we are committed to do this as our generation’s contribution to preserving this wonderful historic and socially important building and we do so hope you are with us. Cllr. Nick Randle, Chairman Cllr. Steve Horner, Secretary Cllr. Lesley Pidgeon Save The Cllr. Maggie Morris Tomkinson Please support Yarcombe Inn! Cllr. Clive Stone - Restoration Lead the Campaign! Mervyn Edgecombe - Procurement Campaign Lead Dennis Abel - Enterprise Lead

1 EDITORIAL: THE YARCOMBE INN their way to Normandy to liberate France from Nazi tyranny. If only walls could talk! For nearly a thousand Most villages have a pub. Or had a pub, as is increasingly years The Yarcombe Inn has stood sentinel, silent the case these days. Following the unanimous vote at observertocenturiesofchange. Nowitisapreciouspart the village meeting on June 5th this Parish, under the ofournationalheritageandthisopportunitytosaveThe auspices of the Parish Council, has launched a campaign Yarcombe Inn for the community is an epic moment in to save our ancient and much loved pub for the our own history. Please, please support this campaign. community for posterity. Up-to-date details of progress will be on the village On a late September day in 1066 when William, Duke website www.yarcombe.net, sent to you via e-Voices of Normandy and his army stepped ashore at Pevensey and published in Yarcombe Voices. Meanwhile, all Bay in Sussex, the Yarcombe Inn was a Church House aspects of the campaign are set out in the series of occupied by monks, a hostelry then as it still was nine articles, written by Merv Edgecombe who leads the hundred years later on a moonlit night in June 1944, PublicityandProcurementteam,inthisspecialSaveThe whenthegoodfolkofthisvillagewerewokenbytheroar Yarcombe Inn issue of Yarcombe Voices. Read on! of hundreds of Allied bombers thundering overhead on Miranda Gudenian

Organisations enlisted by the Project Steering Committee In keeping with its ‘big thinking’ ambitious strategy towards the campaign to secure The Yarcombe Inn, the Project Steering Group has not left a stone unturned as far as major organisations and national and local authorities it has approached for support and help. Since being formed less than two months ago, the Group’s six core members have opened up negotiations with or enlisted the backing from some of the most influential and respected bodies across the fields of community enterprise, heritage preservation and lottery funding. Almost every day a new one is added to the target list but, so far, those with whom it is now engaged or from whom support and backing have been secured or a grant is being processed include: • Heritage Lottery Fund • English Heritage • The Plunkett Foundation • The Pub is the Hub organisation • CAMRA • East Devon District Council • Crowdfunder fundraising company • Public Works Loan Board • Royal Albert Museum, Exeter • Blackdown Hills Parish Network • Devon County Council The campaign plans to seek support from every possible source to ensure that the funding is available to complete the project.

Interior of The Yarcombe Inn from a tariff card of the 1940s

Page 2 ☆ ☆ Stop Press! Major Charity Steps in to Support Campaign! ☆ ☆ News came in just as we were going to press that the prestigious Plunkett Foundation has agreed to help fund our bid to buy the pub. They notified Project Group secretary, Steve Horner, "Following your recent 'Request for Support' for The Yarcombe Inn community pub group, I am pleased to let you know that your application was eligible and...support is available to you."

THE FIGHT IS ON...!! The fight to rescue and save once and for all The belief and hope in what we are trying to achieve. Ideas Yarcombe Inn is on with a vengeance – and this time we are our lifeblood for successfully taking this massive really mean business. In the mere six weeks since the venture forward," says Nick Randle. public meeting which gave the Parish Council its In keeping with the innovative approach taken by the unanimous mandate to participate in the bidding Steering Group, it has been organised into three distinct process for the ancient, historic pub, events have units, each with its own group leader, which will assume unfolded at a breakneck pace. responsibility for: Already, major national organisations, charitable • Procurement, fund raising and public bodies, community support groups, local councils and awareness heritage preservation boards have thrown their weight behind the village-run campaign. Whilst at a local level • Restoration, renovation and alterations the Parish Council have set up a high-powered Project • Future operation of the site Steering Group, comprising parish councillors and key Already significant progress has been achieved on community representatives chosen especially for their fund raising. Negotiations are already started for grants professional expertise and skills to ensure: from The Plunkett Foundation (see 'stop press' at top of • the success of the fund raising campaign page), the Heritage Lottery Fund and East Devon • purchase of the pub and its re-birth District Council whilst a 'Friends of the Yarcombe Inn' campaign has been set up and already over 200 • national heritage-standard restoration registered who will hopefully make donations to help and renovation with kick-starting the campaign. • sustainable new future as a dynamic A far bigger boost will come in the next few days with commercial hub and centrepiece of the village the launch of a national and regional crowdfunding and wider hinterland of East Devon, South campaign in conjunction with the nationwide Somerset and West Dorset Crowdfunder organisation, whereby amounts from £5 To achieve this, the Steering Group, under the to £50,000 can be contributed to our cause. leadership of Parish Council Chairman, Nick Randle, has Further support has swung in behind us from CAMRA, invoked a ‘big thinking’ ambitious strategy which it the national real ale and local pub lobbying believes is vital to support the great community spirit organisation. Regional Chairman, Ray Dwan and key and cohesion of Yarcombe and Marsh and help give the national campaign organisers have all been in touch villages and their surrounding Parish a new sense of with the Project Group to pledge their commitment and purpose and belief into the future. Its plans for The support. Yarcombe Inn building are truly transformational but the Group are welcoming more ideas from those in the "Itisamazinghowrapidlysomeofthemostprestigious area who have clear thoughts and beliefs about how the and heavyweight organisations and national charitable premises can be best taken forward. bodies have thrown their weight behind our campaign – it is as if they have all heard of The Yarcombe Inn and "We want everyone to become truly excited by what why it is so important locally, regionally and nationally we are trying to do with the site because that indicates for us to save it," observes Nick Randle.

Page 3 Historical and Archaeological Significance To villagers and passing travellers alike, The Yarcombe given that the top of the corbel is flat with the horse’s InnmaylooklikejustanotherattractivethatchedDevon head looking downwards it had to project from a wall pub, yet few realise that it is a building of national face, looking inwards. heritage status – a veritable treasure both historically All of which leads the experts to one irrefutable and archaeologically which, arguably, is the key reason interpretation - the corbel stone, known as The we must fight to save it. Yarcombe Horse, is the only surviving vestige of the Embedded in its earliest foundations is an ancient originalNormanparishchurchofYarcombe,replacedin architectural feature which very few people throughout the Middle Ages by the church which stands today. theParishknowanythingaboutbutwhichdistinguishes Today’schurchislargely14thCentury,asrecordedby the building as a the inimitable Ruth Everitt in her definitive book on landmark in Yarcombe, From Monks to the Millennium. Further medieval church evidence of an earlier church, however, is detailed by building. her with the disclosures that in 1228 the then vicar of For in its earliest Yarcombe Parish received a stipend of 26s 8d per incarnation, over annum and how in 1311 Bishop Stapleton travelled 850 years ago, The fromExetertoconsecratethehighaltaranddedicatethe Yarcombe Inn was newchurch,thusmarkingtheendofthefirstphaseofre- anythingbutapub-it building the earlier church. was a guest house for Not until 1672 did The Yarcombe Inn building revert monks from the 12th from ecclesiastical use to that of a hostelry with a John century Otterton Northam becoming its first publican under the Priory, and called a sponsorship of a descendant of Sir Francis Drake. By Church House. The 1754itislistedandnamedinQuarterSessionrecordsas monks, in turn, The Angel Inn, the name probably reflecting the provided refreshment and shelter at the Church House building’s religious origins. for the pilgrims who paused here on their long journey across the country to Canterbury. Its name change to The Yarcombe Inn came in 1818 after the building was extended down the hill to However, the discovery in the mid-1990s of a accommodate more stabling and accommodation as a decorative corbel stone just beneath the pub cellar in a resultoftheconstructionoftheChard-Honitonturnpike foundationcourseonthebuilding’seasternflankjutting in 1811 through Yarcombe which transformed the into the adjacent churchyard puts a whole new fortunes of the village. Previously, all traffic between perspective on the The Yarcombe Inn’s true heritage London and Exeter had passed through Stockland but and gives its origins a unique and greatly enhanced with the turnpike Yarcombe was catapulted out of its status. sleepy existence and turned into a busy staging post for The stone, bearing the head of a horse, has been travellers to and from the West Country. unquestionably dated to the Norman era by experts Evidenceoftheseheadyandbusydayscanstillbeseen from the Royal Albert Memorial Museum in Exeter who today alongside the post box at the lych-gate where the believe it to be the earliest recorded use of Ham stone in original mounting block for coaches and horses remains medieval Devon. largely intact – but, alas, no longer in use. Furthermore,suchacarvedandsculpturedstonewith its portrayal of the horse’s halter providing a rare detailed depiction of Norman equestrian headgear, would almost certainly not have been used to ornament a secular building but a religious structure of significance. Further weight is added to this with the discovery of traces of a lime-wash skin on the underside of the corbel stone, indicating it was not an exterior feature. And,

Page 4 INTRODUCING THE PROJECT STEERING GROUP The Parish Council invoked the spirit of Yarcombe’s Got account focusing on our campaign. Nick, whose career Talent to put together the village’s most high-powered has been in local government, has a formidable network team to spearhead the campaign to fight to save the pub. of community leaders and decision makers at every In a mere six weeks since the level. public meeting which gave the ENTERPRISE SUB GROUP: Council its unanimous mandate Dennis Abel heads this team whose role and objective to bid for The Yarcombe Inn, is to identify how best to establish The Yarcombe Inn events - all highly positive - have site as an innovative, sustainable unfurled at a breakneck pace. community enterprise providing However, the most important has been the creation of benefit and amenity to Yarcombe and the Project Steering Group whose composition Marsh residents, to those from the embodies a formidable array of vitally important wider hinterland of East Devon, South professional skills, disciplines and expertise if the Somerset and West Dorset as well as campaign is to be successful. visitors and tourists to the Blackdown UndertheleadershipofParishCouncilChairman,Nick Hills. Also in the team are local businessman Jon Randle, the Yarcombe Inn Community Project Stockwell, along with arts leadership and management Committee has been organised into three distinct arms, consultant Maggie Tomkinson and property developer each with its own clear role and objective, to achieve Mervyn Woolcott. • Procurement of the Building Theirrole,aswellasdevelopingideasandcommercial • Renovation of the Building to National plans for the site, will be to Heritage Standards come up with the most robust and efficient structure by • Sustained, successful operation of the which the whole scheme can building as a Community Enterprise be best operated and Mechanisms by which to attain the goals have been managed in the long term on identified. With a deadline of November 18th by which behalf of the village. to finalise any purchase, RENOVATION SUB GROUP: work is going flat out on all fronts by project Lead by Clive Stone, a building industry veteran and group members and specialist in sensitive heritage work, the team includes committee secretary, Mervyn Woolcott and Jon Stockwell. retired businessman, Their objective and role is positively inspiring – to Steve Horner, to raise the define how the fabric of the ancient pub building should necessary cash, drum up be restored and refurbished to 21st century standards local, regional and which will reflect its distinguished heritage whilst national support and put in place detailed and workable creating an outstanding ambiance as a venue and focal plans for the future. centrepiece for both Yarcombe and the wider PROCUREMENT SUB GROUP: community. Lead by Merv Edgecombe, this team comprises Nick Already they have opened up links and are working Randle, Peter Tarrant and Miranda Gudenian and for with organisations such as English Heritage, Heritage much of the campaign period its role will be to raise Lottery Fund, Public Works Loan Board and East Devon substantial awareness and publicity about saving The District Council to explore grants and specialist Yarcombe Inn to enable fund-raising targets to be hit via expertisethatmightbeavailableaswellasguidanceand major grant applications, a crowd-funding programme, oversight on how such sensitive work should be best sponsorship and generous donations from supporters, implemented. sympathetic groups, companies and organisations. Composition of the sub groups and overall Project Merv is a former Fleet Street journalist Committee is a mixture of parish councillors and and PR/marketing specialist with a wide community representatives who have the clear range of media contacts at all levels; intention to co-opt more members from the community Miranda needs no introduction as the as and when a particular renowned editor of Yarcombe Voices, expertise or specialist help and whilst Peter is a social media specialist insight is required. Anyone who who set up the village website www.yarcombe.net and thinks they have a skill or who has created a special section on the fight to save the specialism which might help pub as well as dedicated Facebook pages and a Twitter should contact Steve Horner or Nick Randle.

Page 5 How much and where is the money coming from? How much will it cost and where is the money going to come from are the two burning questions at the forefront of the campaign to save The Yarcombe Inn. So what are the answers? At this early stage of the campaign it is difficult for the Project Steering Group to be precise on figures because so many inter-dependent factors and issues are still to be clarified, especially in relation to surveys which are still to be conducted on the structure and fabric of the building. Everybody is aware that the selling agents have put an asking price of £385,000 on the premises. At this stage the Steering Group’s procurement team will appoint its own independent valuer to come up with a figure as well as a structual and buildings surveyor and a specialist heritage surveyor to advise on the scale and cost of restoring the ancient building to full national listed building standards and status. However, alongside the cost of any work arising from these surveys there is the question of start up investment for the planned Community Enterprise co-operative to manage and run the premises as multi-unit commercial operation. All of which leads to the question of where will these funds come from. Listed below are just some of the ways that the Project Steering Group has come up with so far: • Major Crowdfunding Campaign – NOW LAUNCHED with a dedicated website https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/yarcombe-inn-east-devon- community-project aimed at securing support and funding from individual members of the community and anyone in East Devon or elsewhere who cares about the pub and wants to see this quest succeed. Large and small organisations, companies and interested groups are also asked to donate. If we have a good response to the community campaign then large grant givers will be more likely to help us. Any amount from £5 to £50,000 can be pledged and we plan to recognise all Friends of The Yarcombe Inn when the pub is reopened • Community Enterprise Grants – a bid for funding has already been submitted to the Plunkett Foundation and an initial positive response has been received. This was quickly followed by the notification of an Enabling Grant to commence surveys. Another bid for funding has been submitted to the East Devon District Council. Several others are also being lined up with research going on constantly to find more routes to potential cash • Heritage Funding – an application for significant financial support and specialist advice and mentoring has been made to the Heritage Lottery Fund with another application being prepared for loan support. Other funding sources in this sphere are being intensively researched too.

HOW MIGHT THE FUTURE LOOK? How might the future Yarcombe Inn look and be the Project Steering Group, explains: "We want to create managed should the village be successful in purchasing something which the whole community feels is the pub building and site? appropriate and useful. It has to be something which The Steering Group has very clear objectives in mind definitely incorporates a pub but it also has to have an whilst keeping its thoughts, strategies and tactics very appeal across all age ranges and be relevant and muchopentoideasandsuggestionsfromthevillageand compelling for all sorts of different interests. In order to wider community. qualify for grants it will also need to appeal to the wider, East Devon, West Dorset and South Somerset The Steering Group wants to be imaginative, communities and passers-by and visitors to the innovative and ambitious - which is the reason why one Blackdown Hills. Most importantly, it has to be of its three key sub-groups is focused exclusively on financially viable and able to properly pay its way." devising the best and most sustainable structure and commercial mechanism for taking the project forward. "Above all else, we believe that, if handled right, this can be a transformational step forward for Yarcombe. It Parish Council Chairman Nick Randle, who also heads can give us back our community focus and rich

Page 6 community spirit which sadly has been under pressure within the building or bring in managers to operate in recent years." them on the village co-operative’s behalf. With this in mind the Enterprise/Business Planning With a bistro pub - probably sited at the lych-gate end Sub-Committee, under the leadership of Dennis Abel, is ofthebuilding-asthecoreelement,separateunitscould looking closely at be created for such enterprises as a micro brewery; a the merits of village bakery and farm shop/post office; a cafe/tea setting up a room selling farmhouse and locally-sourced food; c o m m u n i t y visitor centre and tourism business hub; B&B; rural e n t e r p r i s e businesses; an arts and craft shop and a small care home company or village for the elderly of the locality. co-operative to act "These are just the initial thoughts which have not as the overall even started to be developed or examined yet. No doubt directors of the people out there will have their own ideas which they d a y - t o - d a y think will work. Perhaps some people even want to put management of the themselves forward to run the units," says Dennis Abel. building. Whatever it is, we very much want everyone to be One possible plan excited and energised by the prospect of what we can do would be for them with the Yarcombe Inn site and come forward and give to then lease out us their thoughts and support. We truly want to make various units it the dynamic hub of the village and the Parish.

Getting Involved, Donating Money, Organising an Event Having read about the progress being achieved by the Project Steering Group, we hope there will be many throughout the community who will want to throw their weight, support and cash behind the campaign. Some may opt to simply donate money, others will have ideas about how best to run The Yarcombe Inn hub should the fight be successful whilst there will be those hardy souls who will want to organise a fund raising event or project. So how do you do it? In all matters it is best to go to the Yarcombe village website www.yarcombe.net which has now been specially re-designed Please help to by web guru Peter Tarrant to put the pages relating to The Yarcombe Inn campaign at its forefront. save There you can submit your ideas and thoughts to the Project The Yarcombe Inn Steering Group or notify them about events to support their fund raising campaign. If help is required then one of the Procurement and Publicity team will come back to you. It is here that you can also enrol to become a Friend of The Yarcombe Inn. The website also displays the all-important link to the crowdfunding campaign that the Project Steering Group has launched for those wanting to donate everything from £5 to £50,000 to our efforts to purchase the pub premises. Cash and cheques can also be handed in or sent to the Parish Clerk, Sarah-Jane Martin at The Belfry Hotel, Yarcombe, Honiton, Devon, EX14 9BD (please include your name and address in the envelope so a receipt can be issued to you). And finally, those with Facebook and/or Twitter accounts can search for ‘Yarcombe Inn’ and become a Facebook Friend or a Follower on Twitter to receive the latest information. You can then help by liking and/ or sharing the information received with your own Facebook Friends or by re-tweeting the information to your own Twitter Followers. Whichever way you prefer to do it PLEASE GIVE US YOUR SUPPORT!!!

Page 7 ! IT E V SA 'S T LE Go to https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/yarcombe-inn-east-devon-community-project where any amount can be pledged, from £5 to £50,000. Or send cash and cheques to the Parish Clerk at The Belfry Hotel, Yarcombe, Devon, EX14 9BD (please include your name and address so a receipt can be issued).

YARCOMBE INN COMMUNITY PROJECT COMMITTEE Cllr. Nick Randle, Chairman, 01404 861648, [email protected] Cllr. Steve Horner, Secretary, 01460 234342, [email protected] Cllr. Lesley Pidgeon Cllr. Maggie Tomkinson Cllr. Clive Stone (Renovation Lead) Mervyn Edgecombe (Campaign Lead) Dennis Abel (Enterprise Lead) Jon Stockwell Mervyn Woolcott Peter Tarrant, Yarcombe and Marsh village website, www.yarcombe.net Miranda Gudenian, Yarcombe Voices and e-Voices, [email protected]

"Saving pdf copies of this issue The Yarcombe Inn" Please email - [email protected] is called for within if you would like a free pdf of this The Yarcombe & special "Save The Yarcombe Inn" issue of Yarcombe Voices to send Marsh Neighbourhood to all your friends and Plan. Don’t forget spread the campaign to vote on 27th even further. July!

Pleasebekindenoughto'post'itemsforYarcombeVoicesintheboxprovidedintheParishChurch,sendtotheEditoratTheBeacon,Yarcombe, EX14 9LU, or email to [email protected] Whilst we very much welcome all contributions to this non-profit making magazine, we takenoresponsibilityforviewsexpressedwithinthepages. ViewsexpressedarenotnecessarilythoseoftheEditor. Mostillustrationsoriginate from the late Don Tapster and the late Ruth Everitt; every effort has been made to acknowledge the source of illustrations; any inadvertent omission will be rectified in the next issue if notification is sent to the Editor. No part of this magazine may be reproduced without permission.

This special 'Save The Yarcombe Inn' issue of Yarcombe Voices is printed by Chard Digital Print, 01460 66211

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