I MUST start by saying say how interesting I found the recent article on how many of Ilsington’s cottages were saved from demolition following the Newton Abbot Rural District Council’s Slum Clearance Plan of the mid-1930s, writes Steve Harris.

My late grandfather’s generation witnessed the demolition of many of Kingsteignton’s older cottages during the mid to late 1930s under that scheme. When one looks at old photographs of those cottages one can only wonder whether more could have been done to save them and the example of Ilsington would suggest, yes!

Numerous cottages which stood in Berry Lane, Millhead, Church Street, Gestridge Road, Greenhill Road, and Crossley Moor, and at Ware Cross were swept away in the name of modernisation. The condemnation of a property lowered its value so that owners were faced with either giving up the site in exchange for not being charged for the cost of the demolition, or paying for the demolition and being left with an empty space.

READ THE FULL STORY IN FRIDAY’S PAPER.