Knightshayes and Cousins! March 20

After our English breakfast at our hotel, we drove about 60 miles into north Devon to a National Trust property, Knightshayes Court, where we had arranged to met my second cousin, Sue and her husband, Andre, neither of whom we had seen for over 20 years.

It was a wonderful visit, despite some drizzle and chill.  We sat and chatted in the cafe for hours, catching up on our lives.  Sue has done hours and hours of Geneological research on the Fell family.  My gran was Hilda Fell.  Her gran was Clara Fell.  Sue gave us a pile of documents and family tree things.  Wonderfully, with her expertise and membership in Ancestry UK, she had also done some sleuthing on the Whites which took us back two more generations which will please Grandpa Cal a lot.

We also walked around the huge estate house.  It was a strange mix of eras, having been built in the mid-nineteenth century, but in. Medieval style.  And, it had two designers, quite different from each other after the first one, William Berges, was fired.  So, the result is quite odd...very ornate, overly decorated, very busy.  The grounds were lovely, but the rain prevented us from exploring.

Sue and Andre introduced us to their dogs before we left.  They were going to take them for a woods walk.  We took off to pay a quick visit to Buckfast Abbey, a Benedictine monastery, consecrated in 1932, where my grandfather, Charles Barber, spent months lodging there, working on the stained glass windows.

 

Then, we came back to the hotel, ate and read over the genealogy that Sue gave us.