Just Released - March 2022
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Available in local bookshops and via Amazon here.
The Napoleonic Wars ended with the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, and Joseph Weymouth, then aged 34 was pensioned off from the Royal Navy and came home to Devon to take over the lease of Higher Lincombe Farm from his father Francis Weymouth of Collapit.
Though he came from farming stock, Jacob’s life until then had been spent in the Navy. The war had damaged him, as it had done so many others; He had seen the terrible injuries cannon fire inflicted on his shipmates when his ship had come under fire in the Mediterranean, and he had been shipwrecked and left in freezing waters off the coast of Scotland for hours, and now he sought solace in nature, his family and his friends.
This extract of his diary details Jacob’s everyday farming life at Lower Lincombe, Salcombe, at Rickham near Prawle Point, and on the many acres around the Estuary that he farmed. He writes of his struggles to bring in the harvest, to care for his animals, of dealings with his business acquaintances and his labourers. He tells of bleedings by his doctor in an attempt to cure his Gout; of allowing his young workers to go to Kingsbridge Fair; of taking care of another boy not physically strong enough for gruelling manual labour, yet also as a matter of course expecting another to work on Christmas Day. He tells of the day when the Maid rode the wrong donkey home…
In so doing he compiled an astonishing account of life around the Estuary almost 200 years ago…