Pictures

The bridge at the bottom of Manning's Pit connecting to the field and buildings at Anchor Mill at the end of Hall's Mill Lane. The bridge crosses Bradiford Water and is where people sledging in the winter would end up, sometimes in the water if they couldn't slow up in time. Branching off to the right will take you to Tutshill Woods and eventually to the A39 to Shirwell or the B3230 at Blakewell.
The name Manning's Pit may well immortalise one Benjamin Manning, a Pilton Street butcher, baker and shopkeeper (trading at 29 and 30 Pilton Street) who leased the land on this side of this bridge over Bradiford Water in 1871.
During an intense period of planning activity in Pilton, the land known locally as Manning's Pit was sold at auction in October 2015 to an investment company, Summix Ltd. The Friends of Manning's Pit was formed to save it from development. A planning application was submitted in February 2017 but subsequently withdrawn in March 2018 shortly before it was about to be voted on by North Devon Council. In the light of the strong local objections, Summix Ltd then decided to sell the land and it came up for auction in September 2020. By that time, the Friends of Manning’s Pit had already started fundraising to buy the land for the community, supported by the Pilton Green Man CIO which had been formed in 2016. After a successful campaign to raise the money and subsequent protracted negotiations, the Friends' offer to buy the land was accepted in June 2021 and the land is now owned by the community.