Strolling Round Town: Aldeburgh and Around Part 1

This is a new post though it covers the events of the 1st and 2nd of July 2024.
It will be moved to its appropriate chronological position shortly.

Fine Fish an Excellent Museum and a Church Full of Memorials

But first, Ickworth House

01-Jul-2024

Suffolk

Aldeburgh is just over 200 miles from home (North Staffordshire), but it is an easy journey, when there are no hold ups, and we had none. Following the M6 which morphs into the A14, there are no traffic lights or roundabouts for 170 miles. The final wander through rural Suffolk is a little slower, and the journey takes around four hours driving. We paused in Bury St Edmunds for a break and to visit Ickworth House.

Suffolk and its position within England)

Being third son, Frederick Hervey never expected to inherit the Earldom of Bristol or the Ickworth estate, so he went into the church, as third sons often did. He was ordained in 1754 and  by 1768 he was Bishop of Derry and doing an eccentrically conscientious job.

His older brothers succeeded to the title and estate, one after another. Both died relatively young and without legitimate issue, so in 1779 Frederick Hervey became the 4th Earl of Bristol aged 49. He liked to be known as the Earl Bishop but held some surprisingly progressive views. After dabbling in Irish nationalist politics in 1783 the authorities decided he should absent himself from Ireland,

Now Ickworth was his he, designed himself an implausible house – two widely separated wings linked by a rotunda.

Model of Ickwoth House

He spent much of his time travelling around Europe indulging his passion for buying art. The Rotunda, intended to display his collection, was the only part finished in his life time. Unfortunately, he lost his collection, trying to return home through France during the Napoleonic wars.

The Ickworth Rotunda

The rotunda belongs to the National Trust and is open to visitors. There are bedrooms and drawing rooms, their walls covered with largely English art…

Arty drawing room in the Rotunda, Ickworth House

… and other rooms stuffed with treasure.

Silver room, Ickworth Rotunda

He continued to travel, dying in Italy in 1803. He tendency to roll into town and put up the very best hotel led to a fashion for hotel owners renaming their properties ‘Hotel Bristol.’ There are still 50 in Italy, 20 in France and dozens more dotted across Europe and beyond.

His heirs completed the house, the east wing is now a hotel, the west wing a conference centre.

Ickworth east wing

We made use of the café and continued towards Aldeburgh

Arriving at Aldeburgh

We reached Aldeburgh in the late afternoon. The former fisherman’s cottage we had rented was in West Lane which connects the High Street with The Terrace. The lane is 40m long, and as The Terrace is 4m higher than the High Street, ends with a flight steps, the top being steep, narrow and with right-angled turns.

West Lane, Aldeburgh

We found a parking place on The Terrace and wrestled our baggage down to the cottage.

Our home for the week, Aldeburgh

The cottage felt surprisingly spacious for a two-up, two-down, was fully renovated and equipped with many things that would have boggled the minds of the earliest inhabitants, but we believe we cannot live without.

We cooked dinner, opened a bottle of wine and watched television – living the dream!

Aldeburgh Pronunciation Guide

Aldeburgh

Two recent posts were set in Wales, (Pontcysyllte and Llangollen) where place names can be problematic for anglophones, but sometimes even English place names do not sound quite as English-speaking foreigners might reasonably expect. All but the most uninformed tourist knows that Edinburgh is pronounced Edin – bruh, and the same applies to Scottish towns like Helensburgh and Fraserburgh. Aldeburgh is in southern England, 420 miles south of Edinburgh and as far as I know the only -burgh in England, but it too is pronounced Ald-bruh, just like Edinburgh – though with an extra redundant ‘e’.

02-Jul-2024

Aldeburgh Morning Stroll

There was no great rush to be up and out and there were some routine matters to deal with before setting out on a tentative exploration. We encountered some sunshine during our stay, but Tuesday was typical of the summer of ’24, threatening rain, and occasionally delivering.

With 2,500 inhabitants Aldeburgh has the design and facilities of a small town, rather than a large village. We walked to the High Street, which is wide and lined with apparently thriving businesses and turned north, away from the town centre.

We passed sturdy Edwardian homes….

Sturdy Edwardian homes, Aldeburgh

….flower filled gardens…

Flower filled gardens, Aldeburgh

….and after turning right onto Victoria Road, the attractive Mill Inn. Everything in this town is in good repair and well looked-after.

the Mill Inn, Aldeburgh

Between the end of Victoria Road and the expanse of shingle beach is Aldeburgh’s impressive Moot Hall.

Moot Hall

The Moot Hall is a timber framed building with brick nogging (I have learned a new word), a gabled roof and an overhanging upper floor, supported by intricately carved brackets. It dates from the first half of the 16th century and could not look more Tudor. The ground floor porch and windows have been restored, but still reflect this period.

Aldeburgh Moot Hall

Originally, Aldeburgh’s town hall, it has served as a meeting place for the borough council, municipal offices and a jail. It is now the home of Aldeburgh Museum, which does not open in the mornings, so we will return in the afternoon.

Snooks

We briefly sheltered from the rain before moving on to the boating lake, overlooked by a statue of Snooks, the dog of popular husband and wife doctors Robin and Nora Acheson. They came to Aldeburgh 1931 and Snoops joined the practice in 1943. Snooks and Dr Robin both died in 1959 while Dr Nora continued practising here until her death in 1981. The statue, unveiled in 1961, is the work of Gwynneth Holt. It commemorates the service of the two doctors, but also Snooks who sometimes went on house calls and was for many years an integral part of the team.

Snooks

The statue was stolen in 2003, this is a replica casting. In 2013 the original was found and now stands in the garden of the Community Hospital the Acheson’s helped found. Some citizens have been concerned for Snooks welfare and he was wearing a bonnet on this cool summer’s day. In winter he has various coats and scarves to ward off the chill.

The Fish Shacks

Aldeburgh’s origins are in fishing. That industry has declined but a few boats still unload their catch on the shingle beach. From the Moot Hall northwards, the path passes a series of sheds perched on the edge of the shingle.

Fish shacks, Aldeburgh

This is where to go to buy the finest and freshest of fish….

An Aldeburgh fish shack

…. or, for a change smoked fish.

Smoked fish shack

It might look like a line of shacks; indeed, it is a line shacks, but even when bought in a shack, fish of this quality and freshness can never be cheap. This was the first of our visits to the fish shacks, what we bought and what made of it is covered in a separate post called Eating Aldeburgh.

We returned home with our purchases and one of them became a light lunch.

A More Purposeful Afternoon

Aldeburgh Museum

In the afternoon we returned to the Moot Hall, climbed the stairs and were warmly welcomed by the enthusiast who took our small fee. He would never have believed it when he was young, he told us, but in mature years he felt delighted and privileged to volunteer in such an excellent local museum.

Too much was packed into one room to cover everything, but here are some highlights.

The Roof of the Moot Hall is one of those roofs that Tudor carpenters could throw up without drawings and with precious little measuring,

The roof of the Moot Hall

The History of the Coastline is told in maps. I have been unable to find the equivalent on-line, but here is a picture of the current coastline.

Aldeburgh and Orford Ness (Map from Bing, copyright TomTom)

The River Alde almost reaches the sea south off Aldeburgh, but longshore drift has created a spit, known as Orford Ness, which means the river must travel a further 10 miles to find the sea. It was not always thus, and it will be different in the future; there are places where the coastline is (literally) set in stone, but much of England’s east coast it surprisingly mobile.

In Roman times the River Alde emptied straight into the sea and the coast was 3km east of its present position. When the Normans arrived the North Sea was slightly wider and longshore drift had started to develop what would become Orford Ness. By the 16th century Orford harbour was in decline, but a new harbour was developing at Slaughden between Aldeburgh and Orford (the village is not on modern maps). Since then, the streets and houses seaward of the Moot Hall have been claimed by the sea, as has the village of Slaughden, and its harbour

They have a 14th Century Chest with three locks, so all three keyholders had to be present to open it. It would probably have held parish documents and other items of value. Whisper it quietly, but Newton Abbot Museum in Devon has a chest with eight locks!

14th century chest, Aldeburgh Museum

Matthew Hopkins. 1645 was a difficult year. Taxes were high, disease was rampant, the harvest had failed and pirates plagued the Suffolk coast. Clearly Aldeburgh was beset by witches. In December, they called in Matthew Hopkins, the self-styled Witchfinder General. His investigation led to the arrest of seven, elderly and vulnerable women. They were imprisoned in the Moot Hall jail, the remains of which can be seen outside the building.

The remains of the prison at the back of the Moot Hall, Aldeburgh

They were given no food and watched to see if their familiar spirits came to feed them and so prove their guilt. No spirits came, but if you leave people without food in an unheated prison in the middle of winter, they will do anything to get out. Seven self-confessed witches were subsequently hanged in February 1646. This did nothing to improve Aldeburgh’s situation, but it did provide Matthew Hopkins with a fat fee. It was not the town’s proudest moment.

Newson and Louisa Garrett and their Offspring. Newson Garrett (1812-93) was a prosperous businessman providing malted barley to the brewers of Suffolk from his maltings at Snape near Aldeburgh. He married Louisa Dunnell and they had 11 children, 8 surviving into adulthood. He was mayor of Aldeburgh 1889-90. Aldeburgh has had mayors since 1527, but he was the first to have an official mugshot.

Newson Garret, top left

So far, so unremarkable among the Victorian bourgeoisie, and it is no surprise that the photograph also includes the Garrett’s youngest son George (mayor 1898-1901 and 1906).

The next photo (almost) includes their son-in-law James Anderson, (1893-4 and 1906), and, right in the centre, their daughter (and by then widow of the son-in-law), Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, not just Aldeburgh’s, but Britain’s first female mayor.

Elizabeth Garrett Anderson as mayor of Aldeburgh

But that was the least of her achievements, she was also the first woman in Britain to qualify as a doctor. Her formal education was sketchy and involved no mathematics or science (not girl’s subjects) and there was no existing route into the medical profession for women. Her long and ultimately successful battle against the establishment was won because she was outstandingly able – when permitted to enter examinations, she consistently achieved the top mark - and phenomenally persistent.

Given the strictures of the age, she remarkably found time to marry and have a family. Her daughter Louisa qualified as a doctor and became Britain’s first female surgeon.

Elizabeth Garrett Anderson was one of the most important women of her generation, incredibly, the same can be said of one of her sisters.

Millicent, eleven years Elizabeth’s junior, is better known by her married name, Millicent Fawcett. From 1897-1919 she led the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies and worked for women’s higher education, as a governor of Bedford College, London and co-founder of Newnham College, Cambridge. She was instrumental in introducing the 1918 Representation of the People Act giving votes to women over 30 (subject to some restrictions).

One hundred years later Millicent Fawcett was the first women to be honoured with a statue in Parliament Square - now, why did that take so long?

Millicent Fawcett, statue by Gillian wearing, Photo; Garry Knight (Public Domain)

Roman Finds. Downstairs as we left, we passed a case containing a copper alloy head, a sword, some lamps, a spoon and other local Roman finds.

Roman finds, Aldeburgh museum

The Scallop

From the Moot Hall, we walked up past the fish shacks towards the Scallop.

Apparently growing organically from the shingle beech, The Scallop was installed in 2003 as a tribute to composer and long-time Aldeburgh resident Benjamin Britten. Crafted from stainless steel by Maggi Hambling, the open scallop shell stands some 4 meters high.

The Scallop, Aldeburgh

Walking round the back allows you to read the inscription and appreciate the weathering of the steel and the part-abstract nature of the work.

The Scallop, rear view. I have turned the camera for the inscription, the sea at Aldeburgh is not really on a slope!

‘I hear those voices that will not be drowned’ is from Montagu Slater’s libretto to Peter Grimes, Britten’s best-known opera. The opera which premiered in 1945 is based on a poem from The Borough a collection published by local poet George Crabbe in 1810.

Set in an English fishing village the opera explores themes of judgment, isolation, and human frailty, set against the backdrop of the sea which Britten's music makes a character in its own right.

Maggi Hambling’s sculptures are often controversial and The Scallop is no exception. Some locals love it, some object to the way it alters the natural landscape of the beach, some just object to it. Whatever your view, it is undeniable that visitors to Suffolk do come to see it (yes, we did.)

The Church of St Peter and St Paul, Aldeburgh

Walking back into town we detoured to the parish church of St Peter and St Paul. I failed to photograph the outside where a stumpy tower presides over a low, wide building, originally 14th century but much altered over the centuries. The large windows mean the interior is well lit.

Inside Aldeburgh Parish Church

The font is an excellent example of 15th-century Perpendicular Gothic style with the traditional octagonal shape.

The font, Aldeburgh Parish Church

Unwanted attention from the Puritans means that much of the font's carving was damaged in the 17th century.

Defaced Angel on the font

The impressive carved oak pulpit may be late medieval or early post-Reformation.

Pupit, Aldeburgh parish church

There are memorials to Elizabeth Garret Anderson,….

Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Memorial, Aldeburgh Parish Church

….Benjamin Britten, in the form of a stained-glass window by John Piper (1903-92), best known for the huge Baptistry Window in Coventry Cathedral. Three sections depict Britten’s settings of The Prodigal Son (1968), The Curlew River (1964) from a Japanese Noh play and The Burning Fiery Furnace (1966)

John Piper's Benjamin Britten memorial, Aldeburgh

…and poet George Crabbe, who is now hardly remembered, but whose work inspired Britten.

George Crabbe memorial, Aldeburgh Parish Church

St Peter and St Paul Graveyard

Many of the Garrett family, including Elizabeth, are buried in the churchyard, ….

The Garrett family plot, Aldeburgh Parish Church

…as is Benjamin Britten, the most important British composer of the middle and later 20th century. Born in Lowestoft, he moved to Snape after retuning from America in 1942 and shortly afterwards to Aldeburgh where he stayed until his death in 1976. He founded the Aldeburgh Festival which has been held annually since 1948.

Benjamin Britten, Aldeburgh Parish Church

Peter Pears was a singer and Britten’s professional and personal partner from 1937 until Britten’s death. Although homosexual activity was illegal until 1968, Britten and Pears relationship was an open secret. Provided they behaved in public, nobody seemed to mind.

Peter Pears

Imogen Holst was the daughter of composer Gustav Holst, who was more English than his name suggests. She never married and dedicated her life first to her father’s musical legacy and then to assisting Benjamin Britten. She was co-director of the Aldeburgh Festival from 1956-77. Since the early 1960s the main auditorium for the festival has been the Snape Maltings, once owned by Newson Garrett.

Imogen Holst, Aldeburgh Parish Church

And so ends the first post from Aldeburgh

Aldeburgh and Around

Part 1: Strollng Round Town
Eating Aldeburgh

and much more to come

Exeter

An Ancient City and the Administrative Centre of Devon

The Inevitable Historical Bit

Devon

Exeter

A ridge surrounded by fertile land, overlooking a navigable and fish-filled river was an ideal spot for our distant forbears. Little is known of the earliest settlers, but the discovery of Greek coins suggests they were trading with Mediterranean peoples as early as 250BCE.

The southwest became the land of the Dumnonii, at least that is what the Romans called them, what they called themselves nobody knows. The Romans arrived in 59CE and built a fort they called Isca Dumnoniorum (Watertown of the Dumnonii) and a civilian settlement grew up around it.

The Romans left in 410 and written history stopped until the seventh century. By then Isca Dumnoniorum had become a Saxon town known as Escanceaster. Except for a brief time in Danish hands, sorted by Alfred the Great, a rebellion against William the Conqueror led by the wife of the recently deceased King Harold, a spot of bother during the ‘Anarchy’ in the 12th century, a month-long siege by the ‘Prayer Book rebels’ in 1549, some difficulties during the Civil War and 18 Luftwaffe raids 1940-42, the city has enjoyed 1,400 years of peaceful development. The name Escanceaster linked the River Esc, now known as the Exe, and 'ceaster' borrowed from the Latin castrum meaning camp. Billions of repetitions by millions of mouths across 70 generations have ground it, like a sea polished pebble, into the simpler Exeter.

The position of Exeter within Devon and (inset Devon within England)
OS material © Crown copyright, Reproduced under CC BY-SA 3.0

Exeter was a mercantile city, but never an industrial city. Today the largest employers of its 120,000 citizens include the University of Exeter, Devon County Council, the NHS, and the Met Office, whose headquarters moved here in 2004.

Exeter Quays

As we often do in May we spent a couple of days with Torquay-based friends, Brian and Hilary. Until today these visits have produced two blog posts, Torquay and Around (1): Greenway, Coleton Fishacre and Brixham and Tq & A (2): Buckfast Abbey, Newton Abbot and Compton Castle. This year B & H suggested that as every Torquay trip involved us rounding Exeter on the M5, we should favour the city with a proper visit.

On a fine day on the cusp of spring and summer, Brian drove us the 22 miles from Torquay to Matford Park and Ride south of the city. Here our old gits bus passes would have given us a free ride into the centre if we had not chosen to get off halfway and stroll to the Exeter Quays.

Exeter Quays

South Devon has a ria coast; every few miles a drowned river valley, formed by rising sea levels after the last ice-age, has become a tidal estuary to a small river. The Exe is a perfect example, and as the map above shows, Exeter was built at the northern end of the estuary at the limit of navigability.

Here, a sandstone ledge provided a natural quay for unloading ships. This worked well before and through Roman times and right up to the 13th century when a weir was built 2 miles south of the quay. With the river blocked to larger ships, the main port moved downstream to Topsham. The response from Exeter was hardly swift, but in 1566 a new ship canal put Exeter port back in business. Wool, hides, and stone were exported, while wine, tobacco, and spices came the other way. In the 17th century the quay was extended and in 1830 a new canal basin was dug, but then, in 1840, the railway arrived and the port went into terminal decline.

Restored warehouse, originally built 1855

A series of redevelopments starting in late 20th century have regenerated the quays as an area of coffee shops, restaurants and those quirky businesses which fit uncomfortably in city centres.

A quirky photograph of a mildly quirky business.
I think I was trying to photograph the plaque saying this is the 1566 quay and the warehouse was bult in 1855

Drinking coffee was our main reason for visiting, but I will spare you a photo of four fit, dynamic (if elderly) people slurping cappuccinos.

In 2015 the Custom House (built 1680–81) was restored and reopened as a visitor centre. The Quays also hosts events ranging from Dragon Boat Racing to Street Food Night Markets.

Customs House, Exeter Quays

To Exeter City Centre and the Cathedral

The City Wall

Exeter is not usually thought of as a walled city, but 70% of the mile and a half mile long Roman wall survives in one form or another. The Quay was, of course, just outside the wall, but it was an easy walk up to the nearest section.

Following Exeter city wall up from the quays

This part is in reasonable repair, much of the upper wall being medieval in origin, but the stones at the base were placed there by the Romans in around 200CE.

Parts of the wall in the way of later developments were removed, so the line can be difficult to follow. Some of the modern buildings are of dubious architectural merit, but a cheerful mural is always welcome.

Mural close to the line of Exeter city wall

We re-found the wall near the Burnet Patch Bridge. After the election of a new mayor on Michaelmas Day (September the 29th, as I am sure you know) the incumbent would lead his corporation for a walk around the city walls to check all was in order. When Burnet Patch was elected mayor in 1813, he found that scrambling down one side of this 18th century cut, and up the other side an irksome chore, so he had Exeter's first wrought iron bridge constructed to save the bother. It is an elegant, if unnecessarily expensive solution to a simple problem.

The Burnet Patch bridge, Exeter

Once under the bridge we emerged beside the cathedral green.

Exeter Cathedral

The bishop’s seat was moved to Exeter from Crediton in 1050 and a pre-existing Saxon minster was used as the cathedral. The building of a new cathedral (on the site of a Roman bathhouse) began in 1133. When Walter Branscombe arrived as bishop in 1285, he declared the cathedral inadequate and set about reconstructing it in Decorated Gothic style. Medieval cathedral builders had to look to the long term, starting projects they knew they would not live to see completed. Exeter’s Cathedral Church of Saint Peter was under construction from 1285 to 1400 – although the Chapter House and Chantry Chapels were built later.

Exeter Cathedral

Decorated Gothic involves intricate stonework, ornate tracery, and richly detailed carvings. Outside, the west front shows this off best, with an array of medieval statues of kings, knights, angels, and saints.

Exeter Cathedral and its west front

We did not go inside, but the photo below, taken on a brief visit in 2017 shows stonework carved almost to resemble lace. It also shows part of the ceiling which, at 96 meters, is the longest uninterrupted vaulted ceiling in England.

Inside Exeter Cathedral

The statue outside is of John Hooker (c. 1527–1601). Chamberlain of Exeter from 1555 to his death and the city’s MP 1570/1 and 1586, he was a historian, writer, antiquary, and civic administrator. Among much else, he wrote a treatise on parliamentary procedure and an eye-witness account of the 1549 siege of Exeter during the Prayer Book Rebellion.

The Guildhall

A short step away, in the High Street, is Exeter Guildhall, which claims to be the oldest municipal building in England still used for its original purpose. I somehow failed to photograph the ornate Italian-style portico that juts out over the pavement. It is held up by four sturdy granite columns surmounted by carved corbels of Beer stone - limestone quarried in the nearby seaside village of Beer and nothing to do with the hop and barley based beverage. Never mind, the portico is a late addition only added in 1594, and instead I have a picture of the rather splendid wooden door.

Exeter Guildhall door

The Guildhall has occupied this site since at least the 12th century though the current building dates from 1463-98. Apart from the 18th century chandelier, most of what we can see is from Victorian refurbishment in the 1860 and 80s. For almost eight centuries, the Guildhall was the city's Chamber and courtroom, and in the basement was a prison known as the "pytt of the Guyldhall".

Exeter Guildhall

In 1685 the Guildhall was one of six locations around the southwest of England used for the so-called Bloody Assizes that followed the Duke of Monmouth’s failed rebellion against Charles II. The vindictive liberality with which ‘Hanging Judge’ John Jeffries and his associates dispensed death penalties shocked even 17th century sensibilities.

Balcony, Exeter Guildhall

The Guildhall is still used for official receptions, mayoral banquets and some City Council meetings. It can also be hired for weddings.

Lunch at the Conservatory

The Conservatory Restaurant is on the first floor of a venerable building on North Street, just 200m from the Guildhall. Having been here for 20 years, it is an Exeter institution.

The décor is minimalist, featuring the exposed remains of decorations from several centuries ago.

Decor, Conservatoy

They have their own style, perhaps best described as fine dining, but without the complications or the cost that incurs, indeed their two-course lunch was very moderately priced. There was ample choice, but all four of us picked the same two dishes. This was unsurprising with the rillettes; Brian and I have often lamented that while good rillettes are available fresh in every supermarket in France, they are hard to find here. Any opportunity must be grasped.

Rillettes - hiding under the gherkins, Conservatory, Exeter

I am bad at remembering to photograph people, so here are Brian and Hilary. They had previously shown us round Hong Kong and Macau without ever appearing in shot, so I did not want to make the same mistake here.

Brian and Hilary, Conservatory, Exeter

That all four us also went for the haddock was less predictable. I thought the combination of fish, orzo and a lemony sauce worked well, though Lynne found the sauce a little too acidic. It looked a small portion and relatively simple, but sometimes less is more, both in number of ingredients and quantity of food. By the time we had eaten two courses, we did not require a dessert.

Haddock and orso, Conservatory, Exeter

[Update. The Conservatory may have been here for 20 years, but three weeks after our visit it closed.]

St Pancras Church

Despite Exeter being no industrial centre, it was heavily bombed during WW2. There were attacks in 1940, and more seriously in 1942 as part of the ‘Baedeker raids’ on historic cities in response to the RAF bombing of Rostock and Lübeck. The damage caused by a direct hit on the cathedral was promptly but painstakingly repaired, but the redevelopment of large areas on the city centre took time, and the results are mixed.

The Guildhall Shopping Centre, behind the Guildhall was only started in the early 1970s. Shopping centres are not my natural habitat, so I will rarely if ever be enthusiastic about them, but the huge, blank brick wall on North Street across the road from a line of much older building, including the (former) premises of the Conservatory, has little to recommend it.

Not all the redevelopment was barbarism; left nestling between the Shopping Centre and the newer Food Centre is the tiny Church of St Pancras, just 14m long by 5m wide.

St Pancras, Exeter

First documented in 1191, the church has been altered over the years and what we now see is largely 13th century. The influence of the Victorian neo-Gothic restoration is uncharacteristically restrained.

Inside St Pancras, Exeter

The Royal Albert Memorial Museum

Another short walk took us to the Royal Albert Memorial Museum on Queen Street. It was the suggestion of politician Sir Stafford Northcote in 1861, the year Prince Albert died. Richard Summers Gard, MP for Exeter, donated the site, funds were raised by public subscription and John Hayward won the competition to design the building.

Within RAMM, as it became known, are the origins of Exeter University, Art College and Public Library. The museum has been enlarged and now owns over a million objects in four collection areas: antiquities, art, natural history and world cultures.

Exeter's earliest known international trade was with the eastern Mediterranean,

It is a treasure house, and while the Percy Sladen collection of echinoderms might be a tad niche, there is something to interest everyone. As such collections have no real narrative, the best I can do is offer some photographs of artefacts that caught my eye. It is not the best piece of Museum photography I have done, but sometimes you win and sometimes you have to settle for a no-score draw.

Roman vase (pity about the reflections). Exeter was once, of course, a Roman City

Exeter was never a major port and unlike like Bristol or Liverpool had no direct involvement in the slave trade, but there were voyages to and trade with the New World.

The Trans-Atlantic connection, RAMM

Nine generations of  the Takahashi family made pottery in Kyoto. The ninth generation focused on the export market; the Satsuma vases inspired the Japonism design movement in the west.

Takahashi Vases, RAMM

I am not sure what connection the Buddha images have with Exeter. The one in the centre is labelled as being from Myanmar. The two on the outside look Thai to me – and since when have I been an expert?

Buddha images, RAMM

The museum is well worth a visit, should you ever be in the area. Once we had finished, we found our way to the appropriate bus stop, headed back to the Park and Ride and thence to Torquay

Torquay and Around

Exeter (2024)
Torqay and Around (2) Buckfast Abbey, Newton Abbot and Compton Castle (2022)
Torquay and Around (1) Greenway, Coleton Fishacre and Brixham (2016)