Coleford is a small hamlet in Mid-

Devon Devon ( ; historically also known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by the Bristol Channel to the north, Somerset and Dorset to the east, the English Channel to the south, and Cornwall to the west ...

, England. It includes a pub, The New Inn with their resident parrot of over 40 years Captain, and also has a park. Coleford Junction at nearby

Penstone Penstone is a hamlet of some 21 houses in Devon, England, about from the villages of Colebrooke, Devon, Colebrooke and Coleford, Devon, Coleford, close to the point where the Exeter-Barnstaple and former Exeter-Okehampton rail lines diverge; th ...

is the place where the

Tarka Line The Tarka Line, also known as the North Devon Line, is a local railway line in Devon, England, linking the city of Exeter with the town of Barnstaple via a number of local villages, operated by Great Western Railway (GWR). The line opened in 18 ...

from to splits from the later

Dartmoor line The Dartmoor line is a railway line in Devon, England. From , the line runs alongside the Tarka Line to the site of the former Coleford Junction where it diverges west to . Previously a heritage line, it is owned by Network Rail. The route w ...

to .

History

Charles I Charles I may refer to: Kings and emperors * Charlemagne (742–814), numbered Charles I in the lists of Holy Roman Emperors and French kings * Charles I of Anjou (1226–1285), also king of Albania, Jerusalem, Naples and Sicily * Charles I of ...

came through Coleford on 27 July 1644 on his way to Bow, where he spent a night during the

English Civil War The English Civil War or Great Rebellion was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Cavaliers, Royalists and Roundhead, Parliamentarians in the Kingdom of England from 1642 to 1651. Part of the wider 1639 to 1653 Wars of th ...

. At that time Coleford village was on the main highway from

Cornwall Cornwall (; or ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is also one of the Celtic nations and the homeland of the Cornish people. The county is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, ...

to Devon. There is a tradition that the King reviewed his horse troop, from the "Porched House", a building which dates from this time.

Henry Kingsley Henry Kingsley (2 January 1830 – 24 May 1876) was an English novelist, brother of the better-known Charles Kingsley. He was an early exponent of muscular Christianity in his 1859 novel '' The Recollections of Geoffry Hamlyn''. Life Kingsley ...

's novel ''The Recollections of Geoffry Hamlyn'' is set partly in the village.

References

External links

Hamlets in Devon {{Devon-geo-stub