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Earlier this year we invited Kingston residents to submit stories that had been handed down to them of family members’ experiences of World War 2.. As the invitation said ‘These experiences don’t have to have any direct connection to Kingston.. the link will be that they are stories known to people living in our community now..‘

We have created a new page on this site called ‘Research Projects’, where you can find the stories received so far. We hope that this page will also be where future local history research projects appear.

Carol Beard, who conceived this project, intends that these stories will be made available in a printed collection at some point in the future. In the meantime we would urge villagers to submit their stories to Carol if they haven’t already done so.

30 members were able to enjoy a fascinating and informative tour of the Royal Naval College in Dartmouth on what was the last of this season’s KLHS organised outings. The group was led by tour guide Lt Cdr Nichola Aldridge who, shared her impressive knowledge of the workings and history of the site.

Among many highlights was the story of the standards of individual commanders – traditionally hung after the death of the individual and left undisturbed, gradually to rot away. Other nuggets of information were the naval origins of a ‘square meal’ – from the square wooden plates used by a gun crew, and ‘on the fiddle’ which referred to the edge of a plate that a sailor might have greedily over-filled.

For those that missed the trip, public tours of the College are available and can be booked here https://britanniaassociation.org.uk/britannia_guided_tours/

An impressive display of aerial barrowmanship from the archives.

The first of our two visits this year is to historic Ashburton on Thursday 22 May. This will involve a visit to Ashburton History Museum and a guided walk around the town. 

 We have also arranged to have lunch at the Grange Cafe at Buckfast Abbey afterwards. 

 The visit will start promptly at Ashburton History Museum at 10.30. The visit will probably be split into 2 groups with one group starting with the Museum and the second with the walk, then vice versa. Both legs of the visit will take about an hour each so the visit will be through by about 12.30. The restaurant is about 10 minutes drive from the centre of Ashburton. 

There is a small charge of £3 per head to cover the cost of the visit; lunch costs need to be covered individually on the day. 

Ashburton History Museum is located at 1 West Street, Ashburton TQ13 7DT (opposite where West Street joins North Street).   There is no parking on site but the town has two main car parks adjacent to each other behind the Town Hall accessed via North Street or Kingsbridge Lane.  The one directly behind the Town Hall is the short term car park maximum 3 hours and the other off Kingsbridge Lane is a long term car park but the two car parks are joined at the top.  Parking is available at the restaurant. 

It would assist the organisation of the morning to know numbers in advance and to be able to let the restaurant know likely numbers for lunch. So could you let us know by email to kingstonlhs@gmail.com

Please note – we can only accept cash payments

Update – this talk will start at the advertised time as below but will be relocated to the church.

Last night’s fascinating and entertaining talk on the Women’s Land Army in Devon by Becks Pearson (right) was topped off by a competition to find Kingston’s most authentically dressed land army person.  The standard of those who took part was uniformly(!) excellent. But the winner of the prize bottle of Champagne, as judged by Becks, was Chris McEvoy