The Early 18th Century Lethbridge Memorial in Pilton Church

The Lethbridge Memorial is an immense limestone monument in St Mary’s Church, Pilton, which is to undergo significant refurbishment in December 2012.  It was put up almost 300 years ago by Margaret Bouchier principally in memory of her husband, Christopher Lethbridge, who died in 1713.  Christopher Lethbridge was the son of a clergyman, John Lethbridge, who was ejected as Rector of Ashprington in South Devon for being a Royalist.  The family lived locally at Westaway House in Pilton.

By far the largest and most impressive wall-mounted monument in the church, it is part of a group from the late 17th and early 18th Century, characterised by experts as ‘Barnstaple work’.  It suggests that there was a thriving and artistically ambitious workshop in Barnstaple at the time.

To learn more about the detail of the monument, follow this link to The Lethbridge Memorial in The Pilton Story Archive.

First Album of Pilton Story Extracts

An online archive is a brilliant way of making things available to anyone anywhere in the world.  Indeed, of the ten people a day who are visiting www.thepiltonstory.org online, some are from other continents.

To create something which can be studied without a computer, we have formed The Pilton Story Album Group to prepare paper albums from the archive.  We will be sharing these albums with any groups and organisations in Pilton with an interest in its history.  To help us we would love people to join this Group and bring along their own photographs and documents to help us swell the story and them learn more about their community.  And as we gather material we hope to begin giving talks about Pilton’s heritage.  First we need your help, so look out for our leaflet on it and do come along.