Category: Devon

So Many Beautiful Villages in Devon, Gypsy Goes a Wandering in Spreyton!

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My friend and I agreed to have  craft table at a fund raising dog show last weekend. It was in aid of German Shepherd rescue, a very good cause. The sun shone and the dogs were cute but as we didn’t have very many customers Gypsy went for a village wander to pass sometime.

The main road into the village had some pretty cottages and a tiny school

 

 

The pub looked quite appealing – hum, maybe it’s as well that i didn’t have any money with me!

And then I discovered Spreyton Pottery and Ross, its very friendly owner. His signature style is a blue glaze, from quite pale to a deeper rich shade and sometimes decorated with dragons or the triple hare emblem *. I fell for a lovely bowl that would be the perfect size for salad and very affordable – if I’d had that cash on me! His work seemed familiar and I thought perhaps I had seen him at a craft show, but then I spotted a coffee mug on a shelf, and realised I had one, a present from a friend and one of my favourites.

Ross also offers pottery classes, with tasters for an hour and a half, which allow enough time to have a go at throwing on the wheel, and painting pottery. He also does one day workshops which include lunch at the pub above, the Tom Cobley – I like the sound of that! Alternatively you can book six weeks of evening or day courses so that as well as learning to throw, you can try slip cast, glazing and decorating your creations.

Ross is a talented man, not just a potter, he also built his lovely studio. He was very welcoming, even though I came empty handed! An all round affable guy, one of the things he does are Hen party sessions, including lunch at the pub, I’m sure he would be a good tutor and genial host.

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I strolled on up the village, feeling inspired to try my hand at pottery again . There was hardly anyone around, the odd dog, child and chicken enjoying the peaceful sunshine. I headed for the church, and through the lych gate

and I sprang a pheasant, breaking the silence as I walked down the  lovely original path.

The door was heavy oak and probably as old as the church.

Inside, it was simple but well loved, with the remains of an old stone font and bits of rood screen. The floor was also natural old stone.

The ceiling, just as simple

Leaving the church behind,

I headed back to where I started my wander, and spotted this, which took me back to childhood when I learnt to sew on a treadle sewing machine!

This has turned into a mammoth post but I couldn’t leave anything out because Spreyton is such a pretty village.

* This is the trefoil of hares, they are a symbol of many Dartmoor villages  and have pagan folklore about  Eostre, the goddess of spring and fertility – where we get Easter from! There are also connections with the Silk road that go back eight hundred years.

More information about Spreyton Pottery can be found at http://www.spreytonpottery.co.uk

The Granite Way, 2. The Pretty Bits

Posted on Posted in Devon, Photography, TravelTagged , , , , , , , , , , 26 Comments

As promised here are a few more photos from yesterdays Dartmoor walk on the Granite Way. Today the focus is on the views and nature. At present the air is filled with the aroma of gorse, sweet like coconut! The undergrowth is carpeted with the green of the bluebells to come in a month and foxglove leaves have sprung up for late May and June. So  much promise of the beauty to come. Maybe one day you will come to Devon and visit Dartmoor. There are walks for everyone, the Sunday mile stroller and the three day hiker.Hope you like my photos.

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The Granite Way, 1. Industrial Archaeology and a Train Cemetery

Posted on Posted in Archaeology, Devon, Photography, TravelTagged , , , , , , , , , 23 Comments

Meldon quarry sits high on a hill between Okehampton and Lydford on the northern edge of Dartmoor. After nearly 100 years it closed in 2011 and has now become an industrial graveyard and a train cemetery. A footpath, The Granite way, also national cycle route 27 runs past it and on to Meldon viaduct from where the Meldon dam can be seen on a clear day and High Willhayes, the highest point on the moor is in the distance. The dam forms a stunning reservoir 900 feet above sea level. Today we walked the first section of the granite way to the viaduct and then scrambled down to the valley and along the banks of the River Okement. Climbing down was hard on the knees, but I was quite pleased to be able to climb back up without needing my inhaler!

The quarry was served by a trainline constructed for its workers and their families but fell into disuse when Mr Beeching made his cuts in the 1960’s. In the summer season the Dartmoor Railway company now provide a service as well as a café and visitor centre.

The train carriages appear to be relics of a more recent past. As any abandoned wreckage they have been grafitteed and their windows smashed. They look very sad, neglected and are rusting away.

For some of its route, the noise from the dual carriageway below intrudes on the bird song, but the walk has lovely views of the Devon countryside which I will post separately, and is well worthwhile.

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Kenton, a Lovely Devon Village with Aussie Connections

Posted on Posted in Devon, History, Photography, Travel, UncategorizedTagged , , , , , , , , 49 Comments

An Australian blogging friend Lynne, over at http://2011onthebench.wordpress.com/ spotted that I am from Devon, in the south west of England and asked if I  knew Kenton. Well, it’s one of those places that you drive through to reach the coast and is just six miles from home. Can you believe that apart from one visit to a pub I have never stopped to look around the village? So I promised Lynne I would go and take some photos, because it’s where her ancestors came from.

On the look out for the oldest parts of the village we saw lots of sweet cottages some probably two hundred years old. The church was very special. We had a look for any Sanders graves in the churchyard but couldn’t find any. One of the church ladies working on the flowers thought there could be a Mrs Sanders ‘Up near Castle Gate’ but we found a  post lady and she didn’t know of her.  There has been a place of worship on this spot for 1500 years and the current building is 650 years old. There are some views from inside including the rood screen, a lucky survivor of Cromwell’s armies. Also look out for St Michael with satan under his feet and angels on each side.

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There are some photos taken around the village and on the Earl of Devon’s  Powderham estate. The houses in the background of the deer photo are right across the Exe  estuary, at Exmouth. My friend and I had a really good time wandering around this morning, it would have been even better with some more sun, but never mind. Thank you Lynne and the Sanders family for giving me reason for the trip!

Sunday Post: Landscape

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As part of my decision to focus more often on the UK, my photo for the Sunday post this week was taken on Dartmoor, hope you like its stark beauty.

At 368 square miles, Dartmoor is the largest and wildest area of open country in Southern England, this shot is taken from Houndtor and the granite outcrop in the distance is Haytor. I believe that some areas on the moor were used in the filming of Warhorse.

This is part of Jakes Sunday post here, http://jakesprinters.wordpress.com/2012/02/25/sunday-post-landscape/

 

RHS Rosemoor, a garden in winter

Posted on Posted in Devon, Flowers, Photography, Turkey, UncategorizedTagged , , , , , , , , , 30 Comments

I’ve been to one of my favourite gardens today, looked after by the Royal Horticultural Society, Rosemoor is near Great Torrington and an hour from home. It’s a garden for all seasons and perhaps best known for its midsummer display of roses. Much as I love roses, it can be a bit busy there for me then and the rose garden is more formal than I like a garden to be.

At this time of the year its heaven, full of the earliest of spring flowers and shrubs and the trees look stunning in their nakedness. There is fragrance everywhere, most noticeably from Daphne, Viburnum and Box with the occasional waft of Eucalyptus. The most common snowdrops are coming to the end of their season but they have many varieties still looking fresh, crocuses are abundant, and the dwarf narcissi and hellebore are exquisite.

Rosemoor is divided into several sections, a winter garden, herbaceous, woodland, exotic and the original garden created by Lady Anne Palmer who gifted the 65 acres to the RHS. To reach Lady Anne’s garden you walk through a tunnel under the road towards the house which is surrounded by a more relaxed style of planting with Mediterranean area and the stone garden.

A very well planned vegetable garden produces an abundance of fresh food for the restaurant as well as seed for research. Right now the espaliered fruit trees are still dormant, but this really shows the skill involved in maintaining them. Strings of last season’s onions hang in a thatched summerhouse along with pumpkins, gourds and dried peppers and everywhere you walk there is an orchestra of birdsong.

Modern water features and ponds can be seen in the formal areas and there is a large lake stocked with Rudd and visited by ducks, and amphibians. The area around the lake has been refurbished since I was last there, smartened up and I prefer it as it was, but no doubt health and safety had to be considered, so it now has an improved path to the edge and a wooden bridge that I do like.

The icing on the cake today was a sculpture exhibition, a wonderful selection of art scattered throughout the garden, and great fun to turn a corner and find the next piece. It was all for sale and for those with a few thousand ponds to spare there were some very desirable things to choose from, my favourite was called ‘Refuge’ and of course was way beyond my reach.

 

I spent five hours happily wandering, it’s a very peaceful way to spend a day especially as the sun came out after lunch. Perhaps I will go back when the roses bloom or maybe when the vegetable garden reaches its zenith in August, whenever it will always be a delight!

I think I have created a pdf thingy of some of the Rosemoor sculpture photos I took, try clicking and let me know if it works!

One Hour in Exeter Summer 2011

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I’m a travelaholic and I’m always posting photos and anecdotes from places around the world but for once I’m going to sing the praises about my own city. Beautiful Exeter in the south west of England is 2000 years old and has something for everyone. Here are just a few pics I took last summer when I spent just an hour in town.                                                                      A fund raising event

A shiny band

A veterans parade (and above)

Restored Tudor buildings

A recent mural

The 900 year old St Peter’s cathedral

Some of the flock!

Mols coffee house

A ruined church

A friendly labradoodle

Silver man

A catwalk show in Princesshay shopping centre

The blue boy relocated from the old Princesshay

I hope you like this quick insight into a summer day in Exeter.There is always something to see and do, we get lots of tourists and the coast is just ten miles away.

Kite Surfing, Kite Rescued.

Posted on Posted in Devon, WritingTagged , , , , , 19 Comments

A mini adventure today! On the beach at Dawlish Warren where the waves were fierce, the sun bright, and the sharp wind made it barely tolerable. We had scrambled past the fifth groin when we saw some green things, one flapping on the next groin and another being taken in and out by the waves.

It soon became clear that it was kite related and I hurried to get a closer look and found that someone was trying to untangle it, and getting wet in the process. He managed to get it onto the sand but it was being blown in all directions and wanted to take him along for the ride. 

The two pieces were tangled together with a cobweb of line that wanted to weave around our legs so I helped to drag it up the beach. It fought back. The section I tried to control was about eighteen feet wide and I could distinguish it from a power kite by the air-filled sausage that wanted to render me horizontal.

Rescue man, being a lot stronger than me managed to locate the pully-outy thing to let the air out on his, which was bigger, then we restrained mine and I strangled it with its own lines. He hadn’t really worked out what sort of beast he’d subdued so I pointed a few miles across the estuary where a few kite surfers were still on the water out of Cockle Sands. We discussed what to do with it, he mentioned the words ‘salvage’ and ‘ebay’, I think he was joking, because he turned it round quickly when I said that I knew a tiny bit about the kiting community, because my daughter has power kites. I told him that I was fairly certain the owner could be found and hoped to God he was also in one piece.

Carrying our loads we headed back to the car park, deciding on the way that he would take it home for safekeeping. Because of his first reaction and knowing the kite’s value, part of me wanted to take it but he had got it out of the water so it didn’t feel right to take over. Instead I took his email address and said that I would do some detective work.

Back home I checked the internet forums, that I knew were out there, again because of my daughter, registered on a local site and posted a message to say it was found. Within an hour I got a reply from someone who knew the owner, a guy who had had to release his kit today while trying to help someone else who was in trouble. I’m really not surprised by that – it was very rough out there and the channel is known for its treacherous currents. Anyway the guy is okay and he will be reunited with his gear so all is well.

January Small Stones # 12

Posted on Posted in A River of Stones, Devon, January Small Stones, WritingTagged , , , , 12 Comments

A twenty foot section of hedge was lost today. Devon hedge, mainly elm but with hawthorn, blackthorn, red Campion, herb Robert, ivy and nettle. At its base there is stone and it must be very old. A hundred years ago it surrounded a field used for cricket, that wouldn’t have stopped the butterflies and bugs from living happily. It’s not the first section to be taken and I wonder when will it  stop?