Honiton

We started our recent visit to Honiton with a first visit to the nearby Dumpdon Hill, located by the simple expedient of taking a look at the Ordnance Survey map and looking for a suitable place to while away a couple of hours, being a little early for our rendez-vous. Not a trick available to youth with telephones and without training in the use of our fine national maps - which have somehow, so far, escaped being sold off for the greater glory of private enterprise and private profit. Maybe there is some Arab out there who would take it on? Perhaps a Chinaman?

A serious hill fort and a serious nature preserve, being home to lots of grassland, flowers and trees. Not least lots of bluebells out in the open, a change for us more used to bluebells as a woodland flower.

A swathe of bluebells

A close-up

The summit

No sign of recent grazing and no sign of any animals. So do they eat the grass down or do they cut & carry it?

The perimeter

The interior of the fort was wooded and the perimeter was fenced, probably for sheep rather than deer. We wondered whether they would be inclined to push through this gap? A fox or a dog certainly would.

A den

One of several substantial dens in the fort, presumably the work of Cubs. I remember that as a Scout we were allowed out in the woods at night for these sorts of purposes. Plus cooking. But perhaps the Cubs of today are not allowed out after dark.

An altar piece

The newer church in Honiton, St. Paul's, had been neatly divided into two, with tea, cakes and community at the door end, leaving the body of the church a more sensible size for what is presumably a far smaller congregation than the place once boasted. With an altar piece in the lady chapel being surprisingly ornate for an Anglican church. Presumably a product of one of the religious movements of the second half of the nineteenth century, movements which attempted to respond to the various horrors of their industrial and mercantile world.

Iron tomb

Access was denied at the older church in Honiton, St. Michael's, a church which being rather out of town may have been taken out of line and may even be awaiting repurposing. A bit far from the centre for an arts centre or a theatre. But we did come across this interesting iron tomb.

Iron watercourse

We were not quite sure whether this iron watercourse running down a portion of the High Street, was for waste water or drinking water, being oddly positioned in the former case and rather open in the latter. Either way, perhaps the brainchild of the chap who went on to treat himself to the iron tomb.

Big houses

The last wonder of the day was these houses, on the way to St. Michael's, probably built around the time of Boer War, by which time we thought that Honiton would have peaked, its glory days as a textile town in the past. Property prices falling. So what were the prosperous, middle-class types who would have bought such houses doing in Honiton? Why could they not be accommodated in one of the many houses there already?

And so onto Ashburton and the glories of Ella's bread.

Reference 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumpdon_Hill.