Along the River Dart

The River Dart became the focus of all three of the places we visited today. I think this post might be called 'Sponsored by Sue Cole' as after her visit to Devon a few weeks ago, Sue strongly suggested that Buckfast, Dartington Hall and Dittisham were must not miss places. We were wise to follow her advice.

But before we begin more about the morning:

Morning

I got up at 5.30am and Drew at 7pm. While I continued with my breakfast of Weetabix, Orange Juice and Tea, Drew, who had been living on tea alone so far, decided he would sweeten up his day by having one of the chocolate treats my sister made for his birthday - a sugar rush breakfast.

As arranged with the people we are renting from (who incidentally are on holiday in Valencia) a builder was due today and he arrived promptly at 9am. He tried to engage me in conversation about his work, but apart from plastic strip and silicone my mind wouldn't process any of the details, it doesn't have any capacity in this area! He completed his work and left soon after 10am

Exmouth to Buckfast

We left at 10.10am and arrived at Buckfast at 11am. The route being a now familiar one along the A38.

Buckfast

While I was aware of Buckfast from the Benedictine priests who used to serve the Parish of St. Mary's, Canton, Cardiff, including the recently deceased Fr. Chris Delaney, I don't remember ever visiting. Which is a surprising lack given I've been to many other Benedictine Monasteries in the UK including Belmont, Ampleforth, Ealing, Douai and Downside, but seem to have missed this one. 

 

The Abbey Church is a very impressive site, though built on the 1018 site of the original Buckfast Abbey, it was remodelled starting in 1882. The history, from King Canute's days when it was founded, thought the Middle Ages, and after a break of a few centuries from 1882 to today is well worth reading - you can access it here.

Some of my non-Catholic friends may be more familiar with the location from its tradition of brewing Tonic Wine - that too has a fascinating history as can be discovered here (you may be asked to enter your date of birth to access this site, as part of the Drinkaware campaign). It is often associated with Scotland and has its own episode of the Scottish sitcom Rab C Nesbitt. 

We spent time in the Abbey Church with Drew taking photos of the Church, the side altars, the statues, the stained glass and the Stations of the Cross. All 145 of these pictures can be viewed on Flickr - start here and click or swipe left. I was struck by how much the Abbey has been modelled on so many of the Medieval Abbey churches we visited in East Anglia last year. We tried hard to visualise what those ruins were like in their heyday, but here is a very good example of exactly the size and scale of them - and it is indeed impressive. 

The Blessed Sacrament Chapel behind the main altar, is a place of peace and quiet - the amazing colour of the huge stained glass that frames the Tabernacle holding the Blessed Sacrament allows colour to be part of the prayer, which seems an odd thing for a colour-blind person to say, but the distinction of the colours even with my limited perception, and the way the light changes with fifteen minutes of being in there, certainly pulls the mind away from oneself and towards the numinous, the divine. 

Dartington Hall

Having spent over an hour at the Abbey beside the River Dart, we travelled closely beside the river as we headed to our next destination Dartington Hall. 

The Dartington Estate is a large complex made up of farm, gardens, house, a Great Hall, art exhibition spaces and facilities for tourists like cafes, a pub, a restaurant and perhaps most unlikely of all - a Cinema!

Dartington Hall has had a long history. The Yew, near the Old Church Tower is at least 1,500 years old.

The Hall is described in Pevsner's Buildings of England as "one of the most spectacular surviving domestic buildings of late Medieval England". The records of the house show a Norman Lord taking position in 1086 and a half-brother of Richard II taking possession in 1388 and the Champernowne Family taking possession in 1559, the most famous son of the family being the 16th century Sir Arthur Champernowne and remaining until 1925 when the estate was sold to the Elmhirst Family who developed it into what it is today. 

As well as the Grade 1 listed building, the Gardens, which owe much to Dorothy Elmhirst, are Grade 2 listed. They are such a well laid out garden that a visit, even at the cost of £7 each, is well worth it. 

These are just a tiny example, many more can be seen on Flickr, starting at the front of the garden here, as ever click or swipe left to see the other 78 photos - there are also plenty of the house and courtyard.

We had lunch, a scone and a latte for Drew, a bag of crisps and a liquorice and peppermint tea for me, in the Round House at the side of the barn in which the Cinema is located. It being after 2pm all their sandwiches were gone, so we were left with a less healthy, but pleasant lunch.

Before we left we visited both the old Church Tower

and the new Dartington Church, which like the original is dedicated to Our Lady.

Dittisham

We left Dartington at 2.55pm and arrived at Dittisham at 3.30pm. Dittisham is a tiny village right on the River Dart. 

It seems to be most famous for the small ferries which depart its pontoon to either Dartmouth or, in our case, to Greenway. Ther high tech method of calling the boat appealed to me, so I was happy to give it a good clang.

The little ferry heads back and for across the River Dart in response to the bell throughout the day. 

We boarded and Drew took some lovely photos of the River from onboard.

On reaching Greenway we walked up the steep path to the house. Being fans of Agatha Christi, we have both read all her novels and also seen all the Poirot (David Suchet version) and Miss Marple (Joan Hickson version) and Partners in Crime (Thomas and Tuppence) TV adaptations, along with the one-offs of other stories that BBC sometimes produce, we thought it would be worth the visit. 

On getting to the house and finding the National Trust wanted £13 a person for entry, we decided we could happily experience the writing of Dame Agatha more than walking around a house in which she and her family would spend summers and Christmases. Instead, we walked around the exterior of the grounds, a nice shady walk in its own right and dropped back down to the Ferry for the return journey. [Co-pilot's point of order: We, dear readers, may have been scarred by having visited two of Ernest Hemingway's favourite houses, in Havana and Key West, when on both occasions we were assured, this was the right one to be at, and the other was just marketing for tourists! This may have left us slightly jaded when it comes to house visits.]

Travel to Exeter

Leaving Dittisham we travelled back down to the A38 and headed for Exeter where we had booked a table for tonight's meal at the Thai Orchid Restaurant. We arrived at 6:50pm.  

Thai Orchid

We both love Thai food, since the late 1980s it has been my favourite cuisine, though I have taken to almost the cusines I have tried Thai remains my favourite for its suitable sharp tones of lemon grass, galangal, lime leaves, thai basil, thai chillies and Nam Pla (fish sauce). I think it is Drew's favourite too, but he will tell you McDonalds burgers and Domino's Pizzas are his real delight, I think he doth protest too much. So it would be a strange holiday if we hadn't been to a Thai, and this one in Exeter is the nearest to where we are staying. The Restaurant is only two buildings away from the Moroccan where we eat on the first Sunday we were here, so we had looked at the menu and saw it had what we have come to expect from a Thai. 

We began with Prawn Crackers as we looked over the menu.

We then ordered our favourite Thai soup - Dom Yam Gung, the intense flavours of this soup always makes my tongue, and my heart, sing. It is sharp, sweet, bitter and salty all at the same time. The way it is served here is with larger slices of mushroom and onion than I have seen elsewhere, but that bite helped the overall flavour. The prawns were juicy and delicious. 

We then selected three starters to share. The first two were old favourites, Bor Bia (Thai Spring Rolls) and Tod Man Pla (Thai Fish Cakes), we complemented these with Sai oua, the lovely thai sausage from the Chang Mai region in Northern Thailand, this sausage, not unlike a chorizo or a salami in texture is spicy and rich it was served with a salad and light tomato sauce. All three dishes were as delightful as we expected, a real pleasure to be reintroduced to such lovely flavours.

For mains we also choose three dishes to share. These were 

Pad Ped King (Duck with ginger, spring onion and thai mushrooms), Moo Pad Bed Krapow (Pork with thai basil and thai chillies) and Ner Dad Deaw (Crispy beef with a hot dipping sauce) and had them with a bowl of jasmine rice each. Compliments to the chef, these meals all tasted as I would wish and were great examples of the rich complexity of Thai Cusine. Each had a good balance of meat and vegetables along with delicious spices. It was the Pad Ped King which was my favourite, but only by a short measure as they were all great.

We finished with an espresso, which is a story in itself. Drew ordered the espresso while I went upstairs to the loo. I came back conversation and was a little puzzled. It went like this:

Drew - Could we have two espressos

Young Thai Waiter - Is that some king of Whisky

Drew - No, some kind of Coffee

Young Thai Waiter - I'll go and check if we have it ... some time later ... yes we do. 

Thinking the espresso humour was over we waited for our coffee and in due course they turned up. Drew's face when he saw the cup sans saucer was an absolute picture. But in this age when we all drink from mugs without saucers, we didn't worry. When the owner arrived after we had finished to pick up the cups her look of horror and exclamation of annoyance was more reminiscent of a crazed Italian in full stream than a gentle Thai. We said it didn't matter, but the young man got the benefit of her ire for the next five minutes or so, and then spent the next ten minutes outside at the exterior tables washing and wiping them as a means of protecting his own safety.

Back to Exmouth

Meal over we left Exeter at 9.15pm for the 11 miles drive back to Exmouth arriving at 9:40pm. 

During the journey, I can feel my sister cringing now, the red warning sign - top up charge now - came on for only the second time since we have had the car, it comes on with 15% battery left. When we got back to the house, we had only 11% battery and only 14 miles left, so the car went straight on to charge.

We headed to bed at 11pm after a lovely day, thanks Sue for the advice.