I'd be interested to hear from anyone who has any information at all about the shipyard based at Combe Martin from around 1835/6 onwards. The yard was set up by, as far as I can discover, John Dovell, Esq., of Combe Martin and Robert Tanner Partridge of Barnstaple, and seems to have been funded with money from the lead and silver mines at Combe Martin. (These were very old mines that were reopened in 1835 by a group of investors which included the above-mentioned gentlemen.) Amongst other things, I would like to know how long the shipyard operated for, where precisely it was based (Newberry beach?) and roughly how many ships might have been built and launched from it before it closed.
I do know that the very first vessel built here was the schooner "Mary and Elizabeth" and that she was launched in April 1837, and registered at Ilfracombe. John Goss was the shipwright but he had left Combe Martin for Ilfracombe by around 1845, so I'm wondering if work or funds were beginning to dry up, as the mines were closed once more in 1848.
