The weather was good with very clear skies which worked well for some photos of the animals in the zoo but worked against pictures of some of the others depending on where their enclosures were relative to us. That said, I was quite pleased with a few of the shots that were taken looking more into the sun, one of which is included below along with a couple of other favourites of mine from the day. These pictures all show different ways of using the light to create atmosphere.

Lyme Regis is famous for its fossils that are often exposed in landslides along the coastline near it. The town was the birthplace of Mary Anning, a heavy influencer of scientific thinking in the fields of palaeontology and geology who, because she was a woman, was not eligible to join the Geological Society and often was not credited as well as she might have for her work. She was well-regarded by her male peers, though, and she made important discoveries such as the fossilised remains of an ichthyosaur, two nearly complete plesiosaurs, and the first set of pterosaur bones found outside Germany.

We would visit the museum at Lyme Regis, located on the site of Mary Anning’s birthplace, but first off we wanted to take a walk along the seafront. Despite the cold. Despite the high winds. Knowing us, it was probably because of those things. We had a choice to make from where we emerged at the shore after our walk through the town from the car park: west towards the beach and harbour wall; or east along the sea defences towards the Dorset cliffs. Both had merits but we opted for the latter on this occasion.

Our seafront walk initially took us past some older stone structures and even a part of a wall that appeared to be miniature fortifications with a small tower of some kind and for some odd purpose. The local football team play at Davey Fort Ground whose name might explain the history of the walls but I’m only guessing here. One thing that was evident, however, was just why there were so many landslides along this part of the coast as the water, churned up and turned over by the powerful wave surges, was as brown as the soil and sand it was eroding right before our eyes.

A sign on a wall we passed promoted the friendship between that local football team and one in Normandy. Lyme Regis is also notably twinned with St George’s, the capital of Bermuda, on account of the island’s founder being Sir George Somers, a renowned sixteenth century privateer and former MP of the Dorset town.

The east coast of Lyme Regis was a vista of cliffs around a curving bay with a modern sea wall protecting the town as best it could from the battering it was receiving – and clearly often receives – from the wind and sea funnelling into the spot along the shoreline. With the geology of the region accounting for its abundance of fossils and the geography of the region delivering up striking demonstrations of raw power from the elements it would be fair to say that Lyme Regis is a great destination for nature lovers. We wandered along the top of the sea defences for a while, marvelling at the pounding from offshore, and braving the wind until such time as fingers and faces started to edge towards the painful side of numb.

That brought the walk along the sea wall to an end as far as we were concerned so we turned around and headed back towards the main part of Lyme Regis. I noticed and approved of the big variety in house designs along the seafront and it was interesting to see some fossils – ammonites, mainly – embedded in some of the walls we passed. Any seaside resort in the UK worth its salt has colourful beach huts and Lyme Regis is no exception there either. We walked to within range of the harbour wall and breakwater jutting out to sea from the shore, but decided not to head onto it at this time (despite our love of piers and similar structures) as we wanted to pay a visit to the museum, fancied a bite to eat, and were in need of restrooms at this point (a biting wind and crashing waves can have that effect).

Tea and cake inside us (that’s what you do when you’re beside the seaside) and a little knowledge injected into our cranial cavities later we made our way back to the car in order to continue onwards to our hotel in Devon. But our visit to Lyme Regis doesn’t quite end here.

The thing about a journey long enough to warrant a stop on the way is that the same journey in reverse is likely long enough to warrant a stop on the return, and this is precisely what happened at the conclusion of our 2014 West Country holiday. We decided to head back to Lyme Regis just a few days later not because we’re getting senile and had forgotten we’d already visited, but because as we’d left the town we’d spotted an interesting-looking art gallery which was sadly closed. But we’d paid attention to its opening times, and realising that those coincided with our trek back towards Hampshire we hit the seaside town once more.

The weather was not quite so clear and bright on this occasion (an understatement) but that didn’t stop us from making immediately for the seafront of Lyme Regis once more. This time we took a walk westwards and made for The Cobb since we’d not ventured onto it just a few days earlier. This harbour wall is mentioned in documents dating from the early fourteenth century. Until the nineteenth century Lyme Regis was able to function as a fair-sized trading port thanks to this artificial harbour but the increasing size of ships soon relegated it to a smaller role. The Cobb is also mentioned in both Jane Austen’s Persuasion and John Fowles’s The French Lieutenant’s Woman. The heavy cloud cover and low tide exposing muddy sand and beached boats lent this Dorset town a delightful gloom.

Coming back from The Cobb towards land I was taken by some of the patterns left in the sand by the receding water. One of the shots I took could almost be an orbital photo over Mars.

The next thing to catch my eye on the walk back into town was the sight of a group of (I assume) photography or art students on Lyme Regis beach trying to take some leaping photos against the sea and cloudy skies. The wind was not making this an easy job but it looked like they were enjoying themselves and it made for interesting viewing from our vantage point back from the water.

All that remained was to head into town and to the art gallery. A few more pictures were taken because if it’s not clear by now, taking photos is what I do.

The art gallery we’d spotted on our previous trip was BizleyArt. We popped in and saw the artist painting while we were there, and after a bit of dithering and an embarrassing moment when I turned my back on the artist to point out what we were interested in, forgetting he was deaf and now unable to hear anything I was saying nor read my lips, we picked up something with which to decorate the home. Richard Bizley is heavily influenced by science and nature in his artwork and Lyme Regis’s connections with prehistory feature often in his works, but it was a piece called Enceladus Expedition that caught our eye as it combined sci-fi with a cartoon style that appealed to that part of us that likes street art and pop art.

Lyme Regis has some nice beachfront and lovely views and there’s plenty to potentially discover if you’ve got an interest in geology or prehistory. We obviously saw enough on our first visit to visit again, so as a day trip it gets our thumbs up but it’s not the sort of place we’d use as a base for an extended stay as it doesn’t quite have that liveliness for the evening we look for.

So, we used the time in Torquay to simply get a feel for the town with an eye permanently roaming on the search for things that might interest us enough to arrange a return trip. This post about our time in Torquay basically covers a walk along the seafront with some notes about what we saw, although we also spent a little time in the town away from the water where we stopped for tea and cakes before moving on.

Even if you read nothing about the history of Torquay you’d be able to surmise quite a bit from a quick look along its shoreline. Torquay is not a big town by any means and there is plenty of evidence of fishing being an important part of its economy. This was what the town was effectively good for for hundreds of years until nearby areas were used as sheltered harbours during the Napoleonic wars and fleet personnel paid visits to the quiet spot. The reasonably warm climate (for the UK at that time) led to the town being nicknamed “The English Riviera” and it started to grow in popularity as a destination for those seeking to rest and recuperate, something which continued throughout the Victorian and Edwardian periods in much the same way as many other coastal resorts in the country.

During World War II Torquay only suffered minor bombing damage and was considered a fairly safe location for evacuees. The nearby area was also used by some of the American troops who took part in the D-Day landings, heading to Utah Beach in Normandy from Torquay. In the first photo below you can see a cobbled ramp leading into the water; this was a loading ramp constructed for the craft taking troops and equipment across the channel.

The Torquay Pavilion Theatre was opened in 1912 after having been started the year before, although the design had been finalised a decade earlier. It’s classically Victorian and Edwardian in appearance and function, with touches of Art Nouveau in some of the details of the building.

You can tell a lot about a place by its flags. Torquay had several of them grouped together in one spot, yet uncared for, tatty, for show but not really considered. This was a part of the world that a year and a half after our visit would vote heavily in favour of leaving the EU – more so even than our own local area of dipshittery – and we could get a sense of that as we walked around. Granted, this was a November, and there aren’t many places that look their best at that time of the year, but the sun was shining (mostly) and yet the feeling we picked up from Torquay was not great. Don’t get me wrong. It wasn’t Blackpool levels of unpleasantness. Nowhere (yet) has Blackpool levels of unpleasantness. But Torquay felt like a place that, like its flags, had a façade of something better in the past over the top of decay. With hindsight I can even understand why these people might have voted for what they thought would be a better world post-Brexit, but that doesn’t excuse the lack of judgement in realising that the people to blame weren’t who the papers or the TV or the politicians were saying it was; it was the fault of those much closer to home. Perhaps they’re comprehending that now. Flags left to rot flying proudly, and the most homeless people and signs of drug use we’d seen outside America, and that instinctive feeling that this was a town waiting for its own end.

Part of the reason for Torquay’s warm microclimate can be attributed to its shelter thanks to the cliffs of Walden Hill. Paths lead up the face of the cliffs through what is officially called the Royal Terrace Gardens but more commonly known as the Rock Walk. Pink bedrock is dotted with landscaped areas containing sculptures and Mediterranean plants, and the top of the hill is lined with buildings that have in the past been likened to Monte Carlo. If you squint, perhaps. No, no we didn’t climb the path up the cliffs.

For all our love of the sea and being beside the seaside, when it comes to beaches we’re generally not too fussed. If you’re a fan of sandy beaches, though, then Torquay has you covered with a long stretch of them along its seafront.

The Abbey Sands Complex caught my eye. Despite only being completed in the year we visited, thanks to local planning requirements regarding height and appearance and consideration for other buildings in the area, the design was influenced heavily by Streamline Moderne Art Deco. This fit in very well with the feel of a seaside resort given the heyday of that type of tourist destination.

Crossing over the seafront road via the pedestrian bridge brought us to Abbey Park. This was an area of public land near the water consisting of a meadow, a pond with Italian-style garden, a bowling green, tennis courts, miniature golf course, and café.

Well, we’d seen the Abbey Sands Complex and we’d passed through Abbey Park so it was only a matter of time before we came to Torre Abbey, from where those places got their names. Torre Abbey was the first major building to be constructed in Torquay, right at the end of the twelfth century. It was originally a monastery belonging to the White Canons (officially known as the Premonstratensians) and is the best-preserved medieval monastery in the county. Following the dissolution during Henry VIII’s reign the buildings fell into private hands until the local council acquired them in 1930 and adapted their use as a museum and art gallery. There was no indication that we could go in when we visited and so we didn’t, but it’s the sort of place we would visit if we were to return to Torquay.

Having eaten up enough time ahead of our planned next stop in Paignton, we decided that we’d seen enough of Torquay’s seafront and headed back the way we’d come. That meant a walk back through Abbey Park, down onto the main promenade along the beach, past the cliffs and the Rock Walk and the pavilion.

Torquay, as you can see, has some pretty areas. But…

As I’ve already mentioned, Torquay left us with at best a feeling of ambivalence towards it. It felt depressing to be there, to be honest, and while it could be argued that the time of the year could have had any undue impact it’s worth remembering that we almost always travel around the UK well outside the tourist season, and only Blackpool has left us feeling worse (and considerably worse). There were a lot of homeless people in doorways of boarded-up shops and plenty of evidence of the problem with drug misuse thanks to dedicated bins for needles and discarded ones in the street. We had an encounter with an aggressive person in a coffee shop (mental health or drugs, or a combination, I can’t say) and there were signs of urban decay in the state of buildings and flags, and the quality of the graffiti (I didn’t post pictures of the crude scrawls likening Jewish people to Nazis). We didn’t like Torquay would be the message to take away from this. That’s not to say that it’s still like this, of course, and you should never base a visit anywhere upon one person’s review or experiences. We won’t be rushing back to the English Riviera, though.

We popped into Exeter primarily to take a look at its cathedral but as we’d parked close to the quay and it was such a lovely day we had a little stroll along the water’s edge first. It’s no surprise to anyone who’s read much else on this website that we like being close to the water, and we like that only second to being on the water itself. The body of water we were looking at was the River Exe – hardly surprising given the name of the city – and Exe derives from an old word meaning “plenty of fish”.

Evidence suggests that this part of Exeter was a port even in prehistoric times with parts used for landing craft of some sort, likely for trading. Prior to the late thirteenth century the River Exe that we’d been admiring to this point had been tidal and ships could sail up and down its length to offload wares near the city, but that came to a halt when first the Countess of Devon in the late thirteenth century and then a few decades later the 9th Earl of Devon built weirs across the river to power their mills.

In addition to stopping vessels from using the waterway this also ended the salmon-fishing opportunities in the river and, naturally, getting trade from the coast to the city now meant offloading and transporting over owned land that demanded costs and taxation. How very unusual for rich people in power to not be satisfied with what they’ve got and still look to take more and make life worse for everyone else. But I digress.

It wasn’t until the middle of the sixteenth century that Exeter’s traders grouped together and employed the services of a Glamorgan-based engineer to construct a canal running largely parallel to the winding river in order to bypass the now silted-up former waterway.

We walked over the small suspension bridge shown in earlier photos – Cricklepit Bridge; built in 1988 to provide easier access to the quayside area that Exeter was looking to open up to tourism – into Piazza Terracina, a pleasant public square at the top of the Exeter Ship Canal basin, named for Exeter’s twinned town in Italy.

A few minutes taking photos satisfied us so we started to head towards Exeter’s city centre and the cathedral we’d come to see. We passed some street art themed in a nice fantasy style and of good quality when it was first painted, no doubt, but in a sorry state of neglect and thoughtless tagging-over when we saw it.

Photos from inside Exeter Cathedral can be found in another post in this travel series.

The cathedral was built over a long span of time and it was possible to see the transitional changes from Norman architecture (the square towers, for example) to Gothic (those windows and arches) both from outside and inside. Its foundations lay over what had previously been a Roman fortification.

For us it would be the many statues and reliefs in Exeter Cathedral that stood out as there were a great many that seemed to incorporate quite odd and often amusing depictions. Take the two exterior pieces below, for instance, that I’ve decided to name Knight Interrupted On The Toilet and Jimmy Hill, Chinny Reckon.

As I write this article (over a decade after the visit to this part of Devon, because I don’t like to rush things) it’s interesting to see the flags mounted on staffs in the photo below and consider the swathe of English flags that have been erected on lamp posts all across the country right now. There’s such a distinction between solemn honouring, respect, and pride in a place of worship, and banal and rampant racism that we see now. Some of the current crop of flagshaggers will say it’s patriotic but they’re only persuading similarly mentally-defective incels like themselves with this laughably imbecilic narrative, and the erections they get when their mindless vandalism and successful attempts to turn cities into tatty, messy eyesores gets press coverage are only discernible under microscopes.

Exeter Cathedral has a stone, vaulted ceiling, and not only is it a gorgeous example of one it’s also the longest, uninterrupted, medieval, stone, vaulted ceiling in the world.

Often when we visit churches on our travels we’ll gloss over a lot of the items mounted on walls, on plaques, etc. simply because they might be religious but they’re all much of a muchness and with very little variation in their respective histories. Exeter Cathedral stood out for grabbing our attention far more. Below you can see a sledge flag that the explorer Robert Falcon Scott took with him on one of his expeditions to the south pole. There’s also a giant version of one of those disappearing ball in a cup magic tricks (I’m guessing) which likely astounded medieval religious folk.

The Minstrels Gallery is a unique feature within English cathedrals with a front piece featuring twelve carved and painted angels playing musical instruments. Meanwhile, the representation of Queen Victoria and other members of the Royal Family to the funeral of Victoria Cross-recipient Howard Craufurd Elphinstone is worthy of a plaque to commemorate the occasion. Elphinstone had come out of the Crimean War not only with that cross but also honours from the French and Ottoman empires and had subsequently been appointed governor to princes Arthur and Leopold in the Royal Household.

Forget the upper minute hand section for the moment and look at this beautiful astronomical clock in Exeter Cathedral below, thought to date from the late fifteenth century. The outer circle marker indicates the hour of the day in a double-Roman numerals, 24-hour clock format while the inner circle shows the day of the month. The marker inside that is spherical and rotates to show the phase of the moon. The upper section with the minute hand was an eighteenth century addition and the original clock mechanism was replaced in the nineteenth century with further restorative works taking place in 1910.

Looks like someone doesn’t like the look of that crown of thorns suspended up there.

Scrawling graffiti on things seems to have always been with us and it was interesting to see how much there was on some sculpted works in the cathedral, as well as the dates.

The memorial below was an absolute delight, being that of Dorothy Dodderidge who died in 1614 (or 1617; there are reports of both, although the former date is definitely on the plaque above only my Latin isn’t good enough to translate it all). I love the pose, laying on one side, dressed in full Elizabethan finery, cradling a skull on a cushion. As you do.

The organ below shows it just after major renovation work in 2014. The first organ in Exeter Cathedral was built in 1665 but it has undergone a couple of considerable rebuilds since then.

Nutcombe Quicke was the original name of the reverend named below, the son of John and Rebecca Quicke, related to the well-connected and reasonably wealthy Nutcombe family in Devon, for whom he was named. At the age of 65, however, an inheritance came up for which he needed to change his surname if he wanted to receive it (like Brewster’s Millions, but sillier) so through a private act of Parliament this was undertaken and he and the rest of his family took on the Nutcombe surname too.

The Lancers Memorial was sculpted in 1860 by Carlo Marochetti, commemorating those of the 9th Queens Royal Lancers who died during the Indian Rebellion of 1857.

Finally, two more interesting pieces of relief work that I’ve decided to name Mermaid! Mermaid!? I’m A Merman! and Tim, Don’t Move, There’s A Bee On Your Neck But I’ll Take Care Of It, Mate.

Exeter Cathedral held a lot more interest in it than most others we’ve visited over the years.