Ladysmith Road - the new Squilometre project for 2020!
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1906 map showing the earliest development at the top of Ladysmith Road. From https://maps.nls.uk/

Some of the Ladysmith Pod - all ages, all smiles - lots of ideas!

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​LADYSMITH POD UPDATE

We had a lovely first meeting on Monday 20th Jan 2020 . One pair of new residents realised that they were sat next to previous occupants of their house!  Another gentleman, resident on the street for over 60 years, brought photos of the Ladysmith Road street celebration from VJ Day.
We did a little Ladysmith Road pub-style quiz and everyone got prizes!

The other meetings on Monday 27th Jan, 3rd Feb and 10th Feb saw some fantastic ideas coming out of the Pod (the steering group of local residents):-


• Projecting a film show of archive family footage onto the side of a building – with a street party - a kind of Don’t-Drive-In movie!
• The South African link and the possibility of linking with a school in Ladysmith, SA.
• Creating a "Chatty Place" with a community library and bench.
• A project focused on the CHILDREN OF LADYSMITH - linking across all the themes.
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The ideas are still flowing so there's plenty of time for you to join in.   The next stage is to present these ideas to the school, our community-builder and councils to see how they can help.  Remember, it's not a consultation from some external agency - it's an invitation from your neighbours to participate in the life of your street!
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A decorative brick from Candy & Co Newton Abbot made from Bovey basin ball clay - from Park Road, Exeter

Some notes on Ladysmith Road history - The story in brick!
A visual survey of the street and some fascinating discussion on the Exeter Memories and Brick of the Day facebook pages threw light on the interesting occurrence of pale building bricks along Ladysmith Road.  We knew of the Brick and Tile works (see map above) owned by Victorian entrepreneur and philanthropist, John Sampson but the locally sourced clay is red.  So the sudden inclusion of the pale bricks in the Edwardian period is an enigma.

However, the great online hive mind gradually pieced together that the arrival of the railway in Exeter would have made it far easier to transport the pale decorative bricks from Candy & Co in Newton Abbot into the City.  The building of the Exmouth Junction in 1908 would have made it easier still to reach the Polsloe area.
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One of the other things we found intriguing was the variety of differing building styles.  At first glance the street seems to be fairly uniform but actually there are groups of houses with distinctive styles of windows and brick patterning.  This became a little clearer when someone pointed out that the land may be been bought by one developer and then sold in blocks to different builders who would have made their own choices about style and materials.  So, even though the development of the whole street would have happened broadly within the same period, there may have been many different builders involved.  Fascinating bit of insight into Edwardian street planning!
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A little deeper history ...
Ladysmith Road was one of several across the nation that were named with reference to the Siege of Ladysmith, part of a protracted engagement in the 2nd Boer War.  The Siege took place in 1900 at Ladysmith, Natal, South Africa.  Devon's own Redvers Henry Buller finally broke through to relieve the garrison at Ladysmith.

Wikipedia says of Ladysmith "In 1847 after buying land from the Zulu king Mpande, a number of Boers settled in the area and called it the Republic of Klip River with Andries Spies as their commandant. The republic was annexed by the British in the same year and on 20 June 1850 was proclaimed a township called Windsor.[3] On 11 October 1850 the name was changed to Ladysmith after Juana María de los Dolores de León Smith, also known as "Lady Smith," the Spanish wife of Sir Harry Smith, the Governor of the Cape Colony.[3] Sir Harry Smith was the British general governor of Cape Colony and high commissioner in South Africa from 1847 to 1852."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladysmith,_KwaZulu-Natal

This offers our own Heavitree community the interesting possibility of making contact with current Zulu communities in Natal, one community to another, to explore the possibility of revealing the indigenous story of Emnambithi's [Ladysmith's] history - just as we have with the Arrertne in Alice Springs
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SO THERE ARE DOZENS OF WAYS FOR THIS PROJECT TO GROW AND LOTS OF INTERESTING SOURCE MATERIAL TO BE DISCOVERED
If you'd like to share your memories of the street or are interested in being part of the "Ladysmith Pod" then please use the forms below to let us know.
​We can't wait to hear from you!