It started with Swans and ended with a Goose. June showed that summer is definitely here and we've had beautiful weather most of the time.
It is the first year in a long time that there are cygnets on the creek, but here they were appearing every day at high tide, four cygnets in all. The first sighting of them was on the main road where luckily a passer by spotted them and moved the whole family away from the road to a field where they could make their way down to the water.
The village did it's bit to celebrate the Royal Platinum Jubilee with several events over the Jubilee weekend. Both the Barn Dance and Afternoon Tea were a huge success.
The creek comes alive in the summer with boating activity of all descriptions. Here a boat is being removed from the water to be taken to the Boat Repair Shop.
This distinctive rock is at Wembury just outside Plymouth. There is a small family friendly beach here which has shallow water stretching quite far out. It is also protected by the headland.
Above the beach, standing guard is the ancient church of Wembury. I will be doing a short post about it soon. The oldest part of the church was built in 1088 by the new invaders who arrived from across that water in 1066. The church is in a good spot if you want to look out in the direction of home.
Near Brixham is this beautiful Arts and Crafts Style house called Coleton Fishacre. The inside is fully furnished and can be toured. The gardens alone make it worth the visit. They fill a steep sided valley which drops down to a low cliff overlooking the sea.
Coleton Fishacre is a property consisting of a 24-acre (97,000 m2) garden and a house in the Arts and Crafts style, near Kingswear in Devon, England.
The house at Coleton Fishacre was built as a country home for Rupert D'Oyly Carte and his wife, Lady Dorothy Carte, between 1923 and 1926. The architect was Oswald Milne, a former assistant to Edwin Lutyens, who designed the house with the principles of the Arts and Crafts Movement in mind: simplicity of design and quality of craftsmanship. The influence of this older movement notwithstanding, the house is influenced by its own time, especially in its Art Deco interior. The structure is built of local slate rubble with a Delabole slate roof. The design has been twice featured in Country Life magazine: 31 May 1930 and 25 October 2007, the latter of which shows full colour photos of the house (exterior and interior) and the gardens. The property runs down to the sea.
Although built as a country home, Lady Dorothy lived in the house as her primary residence by the later 1920s. After the Cartes' divorce in 1941, their daughter, Bridget D'Oyly Carte, took over the house, which her father, who lived in London, would visit for long weekends. She sold the house in 1949, after his death, to Rowland Smith, owner of the Palace Hotel in Torquay. Smith and his wife Freda kept up the property until his death in 1979. The house is a Grade II listed building.
The D'Oyly Carte Opera Company is a professional British light opera company that, from the 1870s until 1982, staged Gilbert and Sullivan's Savoy operas nearly year-round in the UK and sometimes toured in Europe, North America and elsewhere. The company was revived for short seasons and tours from 1988 to 2003, and since 2013 it has co-produced four of the operas with Scottish Opera.
We recently completed our Car Tour number 3. Here is a taster of the trip with the next few photos. These Lime Flowers were on some very large mature trees in Crediton churchyard, the sweet smell was almost overpowering and intoxicating.
Tilia is a genus of about 30 species of trees or bushes, native throughout most of the temperate Northern Hemisphere. The tree is known as linden for the European species, and basswood for North American species. In Britain and Ireland they are commonly called lime trees, although they are not related to the citrus lime.
In ancient Greece and Rome, the Linden tree was a symbol of friendship and tender faithful love. Many European peoples, especially those of Slavic origin, elevated this tree to a ritual tree that became an object of worship.
Up until the age of enlightenment, judicial meetings of the Germanic people were held under a Linden tree. Verdicts often came back sub tilia, meaning “under Linden.” It was a common belief that the tree helped unearth the truth in certain matters. Sitting under the Linden tree was also believed to cure epilepsy in some cultures. Wikipedia and Indigo-herbs
This is a detail of a woven fender for a large boat. Why were we seeing boating objects so far inland as north of Dartmoor? All will become clear when I cover the Car Tour 3 in separate posts.
Also in the separate Car Tour 3 posts will be more photos of the following three stone structures.
This one is 4500 years old at least.
This one is mentioned in a Charter of 974 but is probably much older.
While this one is dated roughly 1100 so we can call it modern. It is older than the church it stands in being the original font from an earlier building on the same spot.
When this Goose appeared the Swans disappeared. It is an escaped domestic Goose which has proved too elusive for it's owners to catch, so far. It's wings were supposed to have been clipped, but he is a wiley old Goose and while happy to eat all food offered, has no interest in moving to the farmyard.
Another one of your odds/sods that has been pleasing to look at and read. First photo and the last photo wrap this post quite well. You really do a very nice job with the odd/sod posts.