A railway which runs the short distance from Buckfastleigh to Totnes, with restaurant, butterfly and otter attractions at one end, snack bar and rare breeds at the other. Plus the railway itself came with lots of collateral. Nicely pitched as a holiday destination with more than enough to occupy a day out.
The restaurant had something of the flavour of the canteen about it, which perhaps fitted with a proportion of the customers being railway volunteers, nostalgic about their British Rail canteens of olden days. But it also gave us a very decent cottage pie, served with vegetables, one of which had, probably, actually been prepared on the spot. The best cottage pie I remember having out - and excellent value.
The accompanying shop had the usual range of railway flavoured souvenirs - I bought a book with pictures about I. K. Brunel - but also catered for the serious enthusiast with appropriate magazines, models and modeling equipment for sale. There was also a large layout which was turned on for anyone interested. The book turned out to be rather good and so far I have learned that Brunel's father was actually a Frenchman, not an Englishman at all and that the famous atmospheric railway of Devon was preceded by one in Ireland, to be precise at Dalkey, the Dalkey mentioned in the post at reference 2. See also reference 3.
The butterflies were in a rather hot glass house (one wondered about their gas bills) which reminded us of the glass house at Ventnor Botanic Garden (see reference 4), a rather different operation to that at Wisley; homely rather than spick, span and scientific. Probably arrived as air-freighted chrysalises from Central America, in just the same way as those at Wisley. There was a lot of lantana, pretty and in better condition than the outdoor stuff at Hampton Court and the film of which we have watched a number of times. A lot of other more or less tropical plants. Some ponds containing koi carp and which were made a bit murky by rather a large number of terrapins, probably rather more than there should have been from a go-ahead eco-zoo point of view.
A variety of otters outside, looked after by a chap who seemed to be full of otter lore and who was keen on going to Skye to see the sea otters there. We learned that otters in captivity were relatively inactive and only ate around 10% of their body weight each day - which seemed a great deal relative to my body weight, even when one allows that the 10% probably included most of their water intake.
Then there was a full size fiddle yard containing a variety of locomotives and a shed containing a variety of dismantled boilers - a shed which looked capable of fairly serious repairs. We learned that diesel-electric locomotives which are not being used need to be covered up in the rain so that water does not get in through the exhaust vents in the roof and rot the insides.
We did not do the rare breeds, although we were able to see them as the train pulled into Totnes - mainly unusual farm animals, both two and four legged. One entirely black pheasant which seemed to have escaped. And the operation was integrated enough that an owl handler paraded up and down the platform as our train pulled in, showing off a young owl to all and sundry. A taster for what was to be had just off-platform. Perhaps next time.
Lots of railway enthusiasts on the books, not all ex-railwaymen as the one that we talked to was an ex-military policewoman, married to a chap who had done 20 years in the army and then 20 years as a Beefeater. We learned that Beefeaters can, or perhaps have to live at the Tower, which we thought afterwards might be a rather an odd place to live, even more odd now than when Osbert Sitwell lived there as a Grenadier Guard before the First World War. Not much like a regular urban - or suburban - neighbourhood. See reference 5. We thought that there was probably some tension between the paid employees of the railway and the rather more numerous enthusiasts & volunteers, just in the way that there is at National Trust operations.
All in all a good day out, just the ticket for this particular occasion. Lots to see and do within a small compass, not involving much walking about. Plenty of facilities. A success which perhaps motivates the trend for presently more staid places to try and muscle into the family market. So Hampton Court has built a very expensive history themed playground to supplement the state rooms. Wisley is rather keen on children-flavoured outdoor sculptures and treasure trails when it is not doing butterflies. Anything to get footfall, to increase market share. But is the heritage market saturated and all these places are playing an expensive zero-sum game?
However, for myself, for regular diet, I prefer staid.
Reference 1: http://www.southdevonrailway.co.uk/.
Reference 2: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/the-paperkeepers-tale.html.
Reference 3: http://www.dalkeyhomepage.ie/atmosphericrailway1843.html.
Reference 4: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/botanic-1.html.
Reference 5: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=sitwell&max-results=20&by-date=true.
No comments:
Post a Comment