A-Z of Curious Devon by Suze Gardner

Author:Suze Gardner [Gardner, Suze]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: history, General, Europe, Great Britain
ISBN: 9780750964104
Google: v2YTDQAAQBAJ
Publisher: The History Press
Published: 2016-03-07T00:14:47.126523+00:00

J

JACOBSTOWE

~ Lock Stock and Emperor ~

In 1891 the new owners of an old house in Jacobstowe were undertaking renovations. The lock and handle on the study door was battered, rusty and no longer working, and the owners visited several locksmiths looking for a replacement. The lock and handle were very old and nothing similar could be found. So it was decided that the lock should be cleaned and repaired.

When the front of the lock was removed an inscription was found on the back which said that the lock had been fitted on the bedroom door of Napoleon Bonaparte on the isolated island of St Helena where he had been exiled. The owners of the house assumed that this was a hoax, but a friend, who was interested in history, did a bit of research and discovered that Napoleon had indeed tried to escape his island prison in 1815. Could this have been the lock used to keep him there? The father of the previous owner of the Jacobstowe house had travelled extensively and was an avid acumulator of unusual memorabilia. In the 1800s anything to do with Napoleon would have been popular with collectors although it may have fallen out of favour later.

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