13th September 2020
Back in the late 1990s John Kelland wrote a booklet about the history of the district of Shiphay in Torquay. My parents purchased a copy and I remember reading it several years ago. Last week I had another read through of this booklet and once again found it interesting. It brought back happy memories of my childhood growing up in Shiphay in the 1960s and 1970s. Remembering the country lane next to the infant school for instance which has just about disappeared. I always thought it was a shame when the school lost one of it's playing fields when a new housing estate was built. We used to have our sports day on that field.
Of particular interest was the section about Cadewell House which was demolished before I was born. One of my work colleagues lives in a house on the site of where the Georgian house used to be and she used to visit the library to try to find out some information about it. As a child I used to play on the green in Cadewell Park Road which was part of the extensive grounds of the estate of Cadewell House. When I first started playing in Cadewell Park Road with my friends the green was covered in stinging nettles and we had great fun cutting pathways through those nettles. My hands had a few blisters on them after a busy day of whacking down nettles with a stick. When the stinging nettles disappeared the green was not very green and I remember it being a field of brown earth. We would then have mud fights! Later on there was grass and then we used to play football and cricket on it. I recall that there were a few relics such as the remains of a concrete sand bag from when it was used as an American fuel depot during the second world war.
I am currently in the process of writing a song about Cadewell House and if I finish it I will try to remember to put the lyrics onto this blog