Kingsbridge is actually in Churchstow. The town has drifted down from the high ground where was the fortified "stoke" to the quay, the "brig." The church in the town is a chapelry, and the erection took place in 1310. It is dedicated to S. Edmund the king and martyr, but why in the world they should have gone to the East Saxons for a patron I am at a loss to know. Churchstow belonged to the Abbey of Buckfast.
One half of Kingsbridge is in the parish of Dodbrooke, where there is a good church with a fine old screen.
There is a local ballad preserved relative to the departure of some troops for America quartered in the place in 1778-80, and there are old men in Kingsbridge who can recall the time when a detachment of military was there. The ballad runs:—
"On the ninth day of November, at the dawning in the sky,
Ere we sailed away to New York, we at anchor here did lie.
O'er the meadows fair of Kingsbridge, there the mist was lying grey;
We were bound against the rebels, in the North America.
"O so mournful was the parting of the soldiers and their wives,
For that none could say for certain, they 'd return home with their lives.
Then the women they were weeping, and they curs'd the cruel day
That we sailed against the rebels in the North America.
"O the little babes were stretching out their arms with saddest cries,
And the bitter tears were falling from their pretty, simple eyes,
That their scarlet-coated daddies must be hurrying away,
For to fight against the rebels in the North America.
