Beside the Exe Estuary

Today our journey was a gentle walk along the Exe Estuary, but before that a few updates.

Update on yesterday

While on Monday there was a lot of driving, as reflected in that day's blog post, I forgot to mention that there was quite some walking, or rather strolling too. Buckfast, Dartington Hall and Dittisham all involved moving around to see things, so by the end of the day I had walked 13,600 steps which is 5.05 miles even though it didn't seem anywhere near that much. It was 14,800 steps for Drew.

Morning

I woke up half an hour earlier than usual this morning. Which was a good thing as with four hours of editing, uploading, naming and amending 352 photos it was quite busy. Before every photo Drew took yesterday he'd say: "At least I'll have a quiet morning". He was right!

Drew took particular pleasure photographing the stations of the cross at Buckfast in a random order knowing I wouldn't be able to help myself sort them so that they ran from 1 to 14! [Co Pilot's Note: What, dear readers, we don't believe him do we - mwwh, mwwh, mmmh] 

I then began writing the blog post which meant we left the house later than we initially intended. But as today is a posh dinner day. It didn't make a great deal of difference as on these days we are walking locally, rather than heading off early. 

On the Exe Estuary Path

As with the other walking days, Drew's Strava provides a better route outline than Google maps. 

As you'll see from the graph in the left corner, there weren't any hills on this walk, except the one we had to walk down to get from our accommodation to the start of the trail.

We departed home at 11.30am, walking back into Exmouth to join the Exe Estuary trail for our walk to Topsham, a village we have driven through five or six times, but never stopped to view.

One of our friends, Malcolm, recommend we take some time there and he was right it is a lovely place. 

The path was not just flat, but very even, at times it looked as if it may have been a railway, but the line ran beside us for much of the way - possibly at one time the path was a second line - but it is very well maintained and easy to walk or cycle. The views across the estuary, even with the tide out, were amazing. There are yet more on Flickr. 

We walked the path past Lower Halsdon Farm,

via the memorial to Joanna Toole a local UN aid worker who died in an aircraft accident.

past the back gate of Lympstone Manor, 

through the village of Lympstone with its clock tower and High Water gates

past the Royal Marine Commandos centre, where they appeared to have parachutes hanging out of there windows??

and the through the small, but apparently wealthy village of Exton with its Puffing Billy pub.

next were the RSPB hides for bird watchers, and there were a few (I mean watchers, there were plenty of birds)

and into Topsham itself.

Topsham's church of St. Margaret made for an enjoyable visit.

The Tower is of medieval origin, 

but the Church had become very run down when in 1867 the Methodist built and established a fine Church a little way down the road. 

The established Church reacted and in the following two years raised funds to renovate St. Margaret's in classic Gothic style.

It has some pleasant stained glass mainly from that era

and memorials to a local family we seemed to produce lots of Admirals.

Drew was also pleased to meet some old friends in the church:

The Church was positioned by the original Saxon gift of land, and gave access to, and views from, the surrounding river, over which it in turn has great views and access.

Late Lunch

At just after two, having walked around the independently run and owned shops of Topsham and enjoyed looking in their windows. We found a Cafe, called The Cafe, and stopped for some lunch.

Our original plan was for Drew to have the Cream Tea (fruit scones with cream and jam) and I to have the Savoury Tea (cheese scones with cheese and chutney). However, they had run out of cheese scones. We still both had the tea

And Drew had his tasty Cream Tea, which was delicious, the cream was fresh and the scones very fruity. He was very pleased.

 

I opted for a goat's cheese and bacon salad, thinking the cheese and bacon would be broken up and sprinkled through the salad. Nothing like it, this was a whole warmed cheese with lovely strips of bacon over it served with a salad it was amazingly delicious, but not what even I would call a light lunch! Still, I did enjoy it.

Return to Exmouth

We walked up through the village, past the train station

to the bus stop

fifthteen minutes later the no 57 came along, we got on and headed back to Exmouth.

We arrived back at 4.15pm in time to shower and dress for tonight's dinner, which will be in the next post.

We had walked 11km, just under 8 miles and 18,000 steps - keeping that step count nice and high.

It had been a lovely day and pleasant relaxing preparation for lots of eating tonight.

Exeter - A city from time immemorial

Today was mainly spent in the City of Exeter, a city which Wikipedia maintains has been a City since Time Immemorial - that is a time before memories and history were recorded.

Exeter Cathedral

Breakfast at Lympstone Manor  

Before our visit to Exeter the day began at Lympstone Manor. The bed in the Dunlin Room at Lympstone was incredibly comfortable, but, as is usual on a holiday. I was awake by 4.30am and got up to post yesterday's photos on to Flickr and to begin the first of yesterday's blog posts.

At 7.30am when went down for breakfast and were sat in the same table as we had been for dinner the night before. Breakfast is served from 7.30am to 10am at Lympstone Manor, but we are always keen to get there early!

There was a large range of cereals, dried fruit, nuts, yoghurts etc available to choose from 

along with the cooked items and other items made to order. On that front Drew went with a Lemon Curd and I ordered Weetabix with hot water - which is my preferred way of eating this breakfast cereal. This caused no comment or confusion and was soon served. I sublimated it with dried fruit (banana, peach and plum) and nuts (hazelnuts and almonds). Which had the benefit of not only being tasty, but giving a good selection for my microbiome to be working on.

When it came to the cooked food, it being Friday, a day when we Catholics are encouraged to abstain from meat as a penance, I watched as Drew had a lovely cooked breakfast that he explained (as part of my penance) was extremely tasty and he was sad I was missing!! [Co-pilot's note: It was a shame, dear reader, as the bacon was cooked just as he would love it, nice and crispy, and the sausage had a high meat, low moisture content - it was lovely.]

I, in an unusual choice for me, opted for the smashed avocado on toasted campagna bread with a poached egg and smoked salmon. It turned out to be much tastier than I expected as the avocado was salty and had a zing of lemon through it. It had the virtue of making me feel very virtuous. I could hear my inner Tim Spector of Zoe commending my choices on behalf of my gut 😉 He is a firm advocate of Avocado, a fruit for which I don't normally have much time.

Travelling to Exeter

After breakfast we went back to our room, I loaded more photos and wrote the blog post about Thursday night's dinner. We packed and took the bags to the car before checking out after a wonderful stay.

From Lympstone Manor to Exeter is a nine mile drive. We had decided having not been to Exeter by car before to go to one of the well-advertised Park and Ride places that surround the city and bus it into the City Centre. 

The route we took, advised by Google Maps, which provides directions through the car's Android Auto interface advised we turn off the A376 and travel via Topsham, as shown above. We soon passed the Welcome to Exeter sign, followed as we crossed the River Exe with a welcome to Topsham, the ancient port, sign.

Park and Ride

We arrived at Honiton Road Park and Ride, parked the car in a large spacious car park and within ten minutes were on the bus into the City of Exeter.

Exeter

As mentioned at the top of this post Exeter has been a City since the time before the concept of cities had existed. Its commanding position at the end of the Exe Estuary has made it a centre of trade and government since the Iron ages. 

There is evidence in Southernhay, the historic heart of the City of human habitation in 200BCE (before the Christian era), by 60BCE the Roman General, later to be Emporar, Vespasian arrived with the Second Augustan Legion and established a wooden military fortress in Exeter of 42 acres. In a connection back to my home country, it was this same Legion that then went to establish its base in the City of Legions (Caerleon) in Wales.

In Roman times the City was known as Isca Dumnoniorum, which translates as Capital of the Dumnonii, the Celtic tribe which ruled the whole of the South West both before and after the period of Roman Rule. 

As the Saxon's arrived in this area the City changed its name to Moncton as it was the location of a large number of priories and abbeys. 

By 928, King Athelstone, son of Wessex's then England's first king Alfred lived in the town and called it Excanceaster (with the river name linked to the Saxon word for Roman enclosure, a word commonly found in English place names - Manchester and Winchester for example). Overtime this became corrupted to Exeter. 

The Exeter Guildhall celebrates this history when, on the outside of the building, built above the old Roman bath house, it claims its existence from 80AD to 1980AD. 

Coffee Time

The marketers of Costa Coffee had managed to get Drew an offer for his birthday of a cake when he bought a coffee. So after our first exploration of the City we went to use this offer. Drew's birthday was yesterday, but the offer was up to seven days, so into Costa we went for an Americano for me and a Latte for Drew along with his choice of a free baked goods item. He choose a Lemon Muffin.

Exeter Cathedral

After coffee we went to visit a number of Exeter's Churches. I mentioned earlier that Exeter was known for a short period as Moncton (monk town) and this history is evidence in the large number of churches in the centre of the City - these are St. Stephen’s, St. Pancras’, St. Petrock’s, St. Olave’s and St. Martin’s all within sight of each other and three within site of the major church of Exeter - Exeter Cathedral. More details of each of the churches can be discovered here. We visited three of them, St. Stephen's with its underpass, meaning the altar area is raised from the body of the Church and accessed by steps:

St. Martin's known for the colour of his stone as the Gingerbread Church.

St. Petrock's, now closed to facilitate Covid and post-Covid homeless accommodation in the city, but with access to its impressive bell room.

But, as already mentioned, most impressive of all, within its own grounds from which the rest of the City radiates is the Cathedral dedicated, as so many Norman Cathedrals are, to St. Peter. Founded in 1050 when the first Bishop of Exeter, Bishop Leofric moved, with papal approval, his see from Crediton to Exeter as the latter town developed and grew. 

The outside facade of the Cathedral is pictured at the top of this post. The inside is equally impressive with the North and South Transepts dating from the 12th century with the building being renovated and extended in 1270 and again in 1328.

The ceiling at 315 feet is the longest continuous medieval stone vault in the world. The multiple bosses, many of them finely decorated, aren't just there for decoration but as keystones locking the vaulting together. 

The above are some examples of the bosses, but there are many more examples, along with lots of other images from the Cathedral on Flickr, if you start here you can scroll left through all the Cathedral images.

Back to the Car

After two hours in the Cathedral and another walk along Exeter's central street, called High Street, we returned to the bus stop for the twelve-minute journey back to the Park and Ride. Our journey from Exeter to Exmouth, our home from home for the next two weeks, will be the subject of my next blog post. See you then!