50 min
S01 Episode 07: William Bilkie the last mail coach guard with Jennifer Young On The Hill
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- Documentary
In the mid-1850s, William Stevens Bilkie was working as a mail coach guard from Falmouth to Plymouth. The arrival of the train to Cornwall in 1859 would bring an end to his job, but William continued to reinvent himself and to actively participate in Falmouth. A renown storyteller and floriculturist, he left behind a legacy that it still around today. What was the mail coach era like? How did the people of Cornwall deal with the arrival of the railway from Plymouth? And how did Falmouth Cemetery kept up with a town outgrowing its boundaries?
In the mid-1850s, William Stevens Bilkie was working as a mail coach guard from Falmouth to Plymouth. The arrival of the train to Cornwall in 1859 would bring an end to his job, but William continued to reinvent himself and to actively participate in Falmouth. A renown storyteller and floriculturist, he left behind a legacy that it still around today. What was the mail coach era like? How did the people of Cornwall deal with the arrival of the railway from Plymouth? And how did Falmouth Cemetery kept up with a town outgrowing its boundaries?
50 min