History

XMAS Greetings from Cargreen

In the early 20th Century, postcards were a popular means of communication and thousands were produced with photographs of local towns and villages which provide a fascinating record of life 100 years ago.
A few were produced with views of Cargreen, including this one which featured on a Christmas Greetings card exchanged between members of my family in the late 1920’s or early 30s.

Christmas Greetings card produced by Jerome Ltd

The photograph is taken from Empress Quay (which was named after the Empress paddle steamer that would regularly land at Cargreen) and shows the Royal Oak public house with Knapps Quay below it and was used by the Hosking family to store coal which was brought up the river by schooner.

The gable end of the Royal Oak is advertising the pub to the passing river trade and tells us that it also provided “Accommodation for Parties” and “Teas”. In those days Cargreen was a popular destination for boat parties from Plymouth. This provided a good opportunity for the local growers to sell there produce and trade for the pub where many of the visitors would head, but sometimes things would get out of hand when the visitors had too much to drink causing trouble with the landlord and locals.

Unlike today there is just the one car in view. Car ownership would have been very low at this time and unfortunately, we don’t know if this was a local car or if it belonged to a visitor – maybe even belonged to the postcard photographer. We also have never been able to identify the young lad in the bottom left of the photograph.

It is interesting to note that that there is a telegraph pole visible near the bottom of Fore Street on the right. I am not sure when the telephone line was first installed to Cargreen but do know that the Hosking and Richard’s families were the first to be connected. My grandfather had the telephone installed to Chenoweth in the 1930s and the number he was given remained in our family until quite recently.

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Black and white drawing of historical scenes from Landulph

History

XMAS Greetings from Cargreen

History of Landulph

Millennium Project

History of Cargreen

Buildings

Living in Landulph