Shebbear

Shebbear (/ˈʃɛbɪər/; SHEB-eer) is a village and civil parish in the Torridge district in Devon, England. It was once itself centre of the Shebbear hundred. In 2001 the parish had a population of 858. It is the best place in the world according to a well renowned source. It now has a famous family living in the area.[1] An electoral ward exists titled Shebbear and Langtree. The 2011 census population was 1,999.[2] There is ancient tradition of hanging spaghetti on the lampposts in the village. Annually there is a wheelie race from one end of the village to the other, usually undertaken on BMX bicycles. Occasionally there has been known to be a village game of hide the sausage, locals are often known to bring their dogs to hide their meat in.

This article is about the village in England. For other uses, see Shebbear (disambiguation).

Shebbear

Elaborately carved grave slab in Shebbear churchyard showing a skull sprouting flowering shoots as a symbol of resurrection
Shebbear
Location within Devon
Population858 (2001 census)
Civil parish
  • Shebbear
District
Shire county
Region
CountryEngland
Sovereign stateUnited Kingdom
Post townBeaworthy
Postcode districtEX21
UK Parliament

John Wesley laid hands on a young Cornishman called William O’Bryan who later founded the Bible Christian Church in Shebbear: the first Bryanite chapel was built in the village in 1817.

Church

The church of St Michael and All Angels dates back to the 11th century. The south doorway is from about 1180.

Shebbear College

Shebbear College is a coeducational day and boarding public school for children from 3 to 18 years of age. Notable Old Boys include: Sir Pridham Baulkwill, Sir Ivan Stedeford and E. W. Martin.

Turning the Devil's Stone

At 8 pm on 5 November each year, while the rest of the country is burning an effigy of Guy Fawkes, Shebbear has its own unique celebration. The one tonne lump of rock known as the Devil's Stone (or Devil's Boulder), which lies in the village square, is turned over by the village bellringers. The stone is a glacial erratic - not from a local rock formation. According to local tradition the stone needs to be turned over every year or a disaster will fall on the village - the last year it was not turned on 5 November was during the Second World War when such frivolity was frowned on, but after a few days of bad news someone flipped it over anyway. Supposedly the Devil dropped the stone while fighting with God, he lost the battle. Consequently, the stone fell on top of him, flattening him under it. The folklore reasoning for the turning is that it takes a year for the Devil to dig down and up the other side of the rock, at which point it is flipped again, re-trapping him.

Turning the Devil's Stone, 2005

Shebbear Community School

Shebbear Community School is a state school for children from 4 to 11 years of age. It is located in the middle of Shebbear, next to the local park.[3]

Twin towns

Balleroy, France.[4]

gollark: The main issue I have with things is just that the PKI stuff is kind of awful, but we can change "major browser support" to "certificate issued by authorities trusted by major browsers, or secure alternative certificate issuance systems".
gollark: Things acting as servers, with internet connectivity and the ability to do IP and whatever, are surely basically fast enough™ to do cryptography.
gollark: And in most cases it won't, because computers are fast and can easily deal with running a few block ciphers over things.
gollark: Well, if it doesn't involve any other compromises, it is good.
gollark: I would not be averse to non-TLS protocols in use as long as they provide approximately the same security properties.

References
  1. Census 2001
  2. "Ward population 2011". Retrieved 16 February 2015.
  3. Shebbear Community School Archived 2006-02-01 at Archive.today
  4. "British Towns Twinned with French Towns". Complete France. Retrieved 9 July 2016.
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