16th June 2005 – Upwey, Exeter, Widecombe on the Moor and Princetown
First port of call was the village of Upwey. It is said to have a (natural spring) well that can grant wishes, so we thought we’d try our luck. The village itself was quite remote and it felt like this was the start of the small towns and villages that are so talked about of England. It was a nice place, but not exactly somewhere to retire to.
We found the wishing well within the well-kept gardens of the local tea house (which was extremely tempting to savour). The water running from it and down the stream looked clean so I dug out my water bottle and Nav filled it up. The saying goes that you are to talk a drink of water and throw the rest of it back into the well over your left shoulder. That we both did and I think we are still waiting for the wishes to come true. We later spotted a couple of signs; one saying that the Black Death originated from this village, and another saying that the water wasn’t treated (So best not to drink it). Ah well…
And then onto Exeter to find Prince Rupert’s old room above a bookshop – which we didn’t find. Instead we took some photos of some redeveloped housing made to look old. The cathedral was also visited although only Nav went in (for about 5 mins) – apparently, it’s not one of the nicest cathedrals.
Finally, we visited Stepcote Hill, a steep cobbled street, of which we photographed just like in ‘In Search of England’. Whilst sitting on the steps, a man who seemed to be ‘a bit out of it’ (and probably homeless) walked by and out from his open backpack fell a lighter and I called to him, but he didn’t seem to hear. Suddenly, a load of paper fell to the ground but still he walked on. Nav and I looked at each other and decided that a quick and quiet exit up the Hill was in order.
Our next destination was Widecombe on the Moor, travelling through Dartmoor National Park, up and down hills, in and out of the mist. It’s the first time I’ve been driving through the moors and boy, was it interesting (and jolly good fun too). Even in the day time, the higher you get into the moors, the denser the mist until you can only see 10 or so metres in front. Plus there are animals lying on the road side, so it meant that we had to be on our toes. Widecombe is another small village, made eerie by the light mist floating around. There were only one or two villagers walking about and a couple of shops open. I stopped in one to purchase some local (clotted cream) fudge, Nav purchased a tea towel with the local song written on it. It read more like a story with sentences broken up to fit into the appropriate song form – it wasn’t an interesting song, so I won’t bother to tell you about it. We are currently using the tea towel for the dishes – it’s quite good and soaks up water really well…
The final stop of the day was Princetown, somewhere in the middle of the Dartmoor Park. This was far more eerie than anywhere I have ever seen – it was like something from the movies. The mist was pea-soap like and the place deserted. We walked about the place but were told that the all the shops had shut (an empty tour bus had stopped by the Tourist Information Centre [TIC] also). The town looked to be building a primary or secondary school, which was nearly finished. A few shops were dotted around the street but nothing that you would consider to be a parade of shops. We found one shop where the owner had simply given their section of the building to the local council without payment. Clearly, it’s difficult to do business here, although it was an ‘arts and craft’ store. We left Princetown and found that the houses extended further than we thought. The pea-soup clouded a few other streets and also the local prison, something that we were looking for (because it was in Morton’s book).
Heading westwards, we drove through and out of the moors, on towards Tavistock for the camp site. There we found the owner to be a little odd in an indescribable manner. We parted with our money and set camp.
-- steven
We found the wishing well within the well-kept gardens of the local tea house (which was extremely tempting to savour). The water running from it and down the stream looked clean so I dug out my water bottle and Nav filled it up. The saying goes that you are to talk a drink of water and throw the rest of it back into the well over your left shoulder. That we both did and I think we are still waiting for the wishes to come true. We later spotted a couple of signs; one saying that the Black Death originated from this village, and another saying that the water wasn’t treated (So best not to drink it). Ah well…
And then onto Exeter to find Prince Rupert’s old room above a bookshop – which we didn’t find. Instead we took some photos of some redeveloped housing made to look old. The cathedral was also visited although only Nav went in (for about 5 mins) – apparently, it’s not one of the nicest cathedrals.
Finally, we visited Stepcote Hill, a steep cobbled street, of which we photographed just like in ‘In Search of England’. Whilst sitting on the steps, a man who seemed to be ‘a bit out of it’ (and probably homeless) walked by and out from his open backpack fell a lighter and I called to him, but he didn’t seem to hear. Suddenly, a load of paper fell to the ground but still he walked on. Nav and I looked at each other and decided that a quick and quiet exit up the Hill was in order.
Our next destination was Widecombe on the Moor, travelling through Dartmoor National Park, up and down hills, in and out of the mist. It’s the first time I’ve been driving through the moors and boy, was it interesting (and jolly good fun too). Even in the day time, the higher you get into the moors, the denser the mist until you can only see 10 or so metres in front. Plus there are animals lying on the road side, so it meant that we had to be on our toes. Widecombe is another small village, made eerie by the light mist floating around. There were only one or two villagers walking about and a couple of shops open. I stopped in one to purchase some local (clotted cream) fudge, Nav purchased a tea towel with the local song written on it. It read more like a story with sentences broken up to fit into the appropriate song form – it wasn’t an interesting song, so I won’t bother to tell you about it. We are currently using the tea towel for the dishes – it’s quite good and soaks up water really well…
The final stop of the day was Princetown, somewhere in the middle of the Dartmoor Park. This was far more eerie than anywhere I have ever seen – it was like something from the movies. The mist was pea-soap like and the place deserted. We walked about the place but were told that the all the shops had shut (an empty tour bus had stopped by the Tourist Information Centre [TIC] also). The town looked to be building a primary or secondary school, which was nearly finished. A few shops were dotted around the street but nothing that you would consider to be a parade of shops. We found one shop where the owner had simply given their section of the building to the local council without payment. Clearly, it’s difficult to do business here, although it was an ‘arts and craft’ store. We left Princetown and found that the houses extended further than we thought. The pea-soup clouded a few other streets and also the local prison, something that we were looking for (because it was in Morton’s book).
Heading westwards, we drove through and out of the moors, on towards Tavistock for the camp site. There we found the owner to be a little odd in an indescribable manner. We parted with our money and set camp.
-- steven
posted by Steven | 12:40 pm
1 Comments:
Lot's of life in Widecombe - if you know where to look. See here for some of it. Also really sunny today - no mist to be seen anywhere! Keep enjoying your trip! (ps Exeter Cathedral is lovely)
Cheers
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