a was named , also four sixth-rate ships of the line have been named after the town. Nowadays the only shipbuilding in the area is at Appledore Shipbuilders, which has built civilian ships and ships for the Royal Navy and Irish Naval Service. Currently ball clay is exported from Bideford to Castellón, Spain and also Naantali, Finland; also wood has been exported to Wismar, Germany. The , the last remaining British-built wooden-hull three-masted topsail schooner, is registered in Bideford and was at one time based there. There are also some fishing boats that still operate out of Bideford. Literary references This area of North Devon was home to the author Charles Kingsley, and is where he based his novel Westward Ho!. A small seaside town, named after the book, was built after the book's publication. Westward Ho!, the only town in the United Kingdom which officially contains an exclamation mark in its name, is approximately three miles (5 km) from Bideford. A statue was erected in honour of Kingsley near the car park of Victoria Park. Namesakes The city of Biddeford, Maine, in the United States was named after the English town, using the original old English spelling. Also, the town of Bideford in the province of Prince Edward Island, Canada, is named after the English town, as is the small town of Bideford, New Zealand. Bideford Black Bideford Black is a unique pigment which was mined for 200 years up until 1969 in Bideford and the surrounding area. The deposits were formed 350 million years ago during the Carboniferous period on Gondwana. Bideford Black contains carbon, silica and alumina, with the black colouration created by the carbon. The seams containing Bideford Black Stretch from Hartland, underneath Bideford, and onto Umberleigh. Bideford Black was used in a number of ways; for example, it was used as camouflage paint during World War II, in mascara by Max Factor, by artists, and in the boat-building industry. Bideford Black was processed as a paint and a dye up until the mining stopped. A number of artists (mainly local artists) used these Bideford Black paints and oils in their works. The Bideford Black Mining Company produced Biddiblack powder at a processing plant in Chapel Park, East-the-Water. Some of the miners' houses were situated at Springfield Terrace, East-the-Water. The mining of the pigment became unviable when other blacks went into large, cheap commercial production. Bideford