Editing Bideford (section)

===Twinning===
The town is [[Twin towns|twinned]] with [[Landivisiau]] in France. It has been twinned with Landivisiau since 1976; each year members of the Bideford Twinning Association take part in an exchange trip with Landivisiau.<ref name="bideford-tc2">{{cite web|url=http://www.bideford-tc.gov.uk/your-history-and-our-friends/twin-towns/landisvisau-france|title=Bideford Town Council – Landisvisau – France|publisher=bideford-tc.gov.uk|access-date=31 March 2015|archive-date=2 April 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402122930/http://www.bideford-tc.gov.uk/your-history-and-our-friends/twin-towns/landisvisau-france|url-status=live}}</ref>
On 20 October 2006, British [[ex-patriate]] David Riley came to mark the '20-year link' between [[Manteo, North Carolina|Manteo]] on [[Roanoke Island]], [[North Carolina]], and Bideford. The Bideford town clerk, George McLauchlan, told him that locals had never heard of Manteo, and that the only town Bideford was twinned with was in France. Mr Riley handed over a clock to 'celebrate' the twenty-year link, while the Manteo Town manager Kermit Skinner said the link started in the 1980s during the 400th anniversary of Raleigh's voyages to America.
It turns out the 'twinning' of Bideford with Manteo had been established 20 years before. But the story goes back much further – 500 years – to the mysterious disappearance of a colony of more than 100 people on Roanoke Island, many of whom were immigrants from Bideford. The colony was established by Sir Richard Grenville, who brought back two Native American Indians, one of them called [[Manteo (Croatan)|Manteo]] which gave the North Carolina town its name.<ref>{{cite news
 |title = Gifts from an undiscovered US twin town
 |url = http://www.northdevongazette.co.uk/northdevongazette/news/story.aspx?brand=NDGOnline&category=news&tBrand=devon24&tCategory=newsndga&itemid=DEED18%20Oct%202006%2013%3A10%3A50%3A900
 |work = The North Devon Gazette
 |publisher = Archant Regional
 |date = 18 October 2006
 |access-date = 21 October 2006
 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070311021428/http://www.northdevongazette.co.uk/northdevongazette/news/story.aspx?brand=NDGOnline&category=news&tBrand=devon24&tCategory=newsndga&itemid=DEED18%20Oct%202006%2013%3A10%3A50%3A900
 |archive-date = 11 March 2007
 |url-status = dead
 }}</ref>