Half blasted

BH's secondary school was Teignmouth Grammar, a consequence of her living at the time a little to the south of the Exeter city boundary, which meant, following the rules of the day, that she had to travel a good deal further south to go to school, rather than nipping into the much nearer Exeter. A school which has now disappeared inside Teignmouth Community School run by an outfit called the Osprey Learning Trust. While BH remembers when the core of the school was a large old house on the edge of town, up the hill from the railway station, in which the female teachers had a genteel lounge on the first floor, where tea and biscuits were served, and the male teachers, often in dowdy tweed jackets, had a smoke filled den on the ground floor. Female teachers were known, occasionally, to get into a strop if someone else had presumed to use their cup. Male teachers, if someone had presumed to use their armchair, ever so tatty it might have been.

So we decided that, while we were in Devon, we should pay a visit. But what I had not realised was that old Teignmouth had been built on the sand bar across the mouth of the Teign, rather in the way of Dawlish Warren, a little to the north, barring the mouth of the Exe. So we spent our day exploring that end of town and never made it up the hill at all. Which will have to wait for another occasion.

The expedition started with out noticing large numbers of bees and such being attracted to the Weigela outside our cottage, but for some reason not visible in the snap above.

Onto the sea front, where we discovered the remains, rather the results, of a big local controversary about flood prevention. Where a new front had been grafted onto the west facing front walls of this row of a dozen or so houses - facing not the sea but the Teign. Presumably the risk arose from rain in the hills to the west creating a surge down the Teign, possibly unpleasant if coinciding with a high tide from the sea to the east. New fronts including identical, heavy duty double glazing units, presumably good for so many feet of flood water. While we were peering, an older lady marched by muttering audibly about dreadful waste of money. We learned later that the whole business had made it big-time to the local television news.

Not only new fronts, but also sturdy new gates, which must have been good business for the local engineering shops which could cope with stainless steel. Not that stainless I might say, as seawater seems to stain it brown. Is stainless steel, being an alloy, subject to electrical action in the way of marine brass, for which see reference 3.

Boot art and other garden ornaments tastefully arranged on top of one of the gates. The shop proper being in a old dock side building, possibly dating from the time of fishing. With the docks having once done a serious coastal trade, including, for example, shipping out the Dartmoor granite used in the construction of London Bridge. Altogether a much bigger place than Dawlish with, like most towns of the kind, rather more shops than it now has use for.

Chimney looked to come from the same shop as that for the coke stove we ran when we first came to Epsom. An expensive but entertaining item for a few years. In our case, the coke fumes rotted the bracket which supported it, but the one here looks fine. Perhaps it is new.

Lunch in the chipper already noticed at reference 4. Followed by an outdoor ice cream - with BH's first cone being stolen by a seagull. That is to say the ice cream part of her cone was knocked off the cone then gathered up from the pavement. She was rather put out. While I associated to the throbbing ball of seagulls we once saw at Portree (in Skye), demolishing some fish and chips which somebody had dumped over the side of the dock there.

The bases of the concrete cladding the steel columns is taking a battering from the sea.

While I closed the main proceedings by using a handy weighing machine, charges up to 20p from the 1d that I remember. A bit heavier than last time, when the warfarin people had done it, but this time I had had lunch, was wearing both duffel coat and shoes.

Not sure of the role of this nest of wheelie bins, mostly upside down. With the terrace behind suggesting a once grand bit of Teignmouth. The block with the circular window, for example, is the Lynton House Hotel. I learn from their reference 5 that the terrace was an 1860's speculation by the Courtney Family, then led by the 11th Earl of Devon, who was also into railways. An ancient earldom, revived in the 19th century by some aristocratic chicanery, no doubt involving the Court of Chancery and the College of Heralds. Maybe with some new money brought in by marriage into trade?

We left by way of the fine new bridge over the Teign, which took us to Shaldon, where we were greeted by the rather large church snapped from Street View above: ‘The church of St. Peter the Apostle is one of five churches within the Benefice and Mission Community of Shaldon. Our sister Benefice churches are St Nicholas Ringmore, St Andrew's Stokeinteignhead, All Saints Combeinteignhead and St Blaise Haccombe’.

Returning to Newton Abbot by the road which starts by running west along the Teign. Narrow but picturesque. A village and a road to be explored more thoroughly on another occasion. Maybe there were Wellingtonias, but we missed them first time around.

References

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

Reference 2: https://www.ospreylearningtrust.co.uk/. A respectable showing of executive headteachers to be found here.

Reference 3: https://rotaxmetals.net/why-naval-brass-is-capable-of-resisting-corrosion-caused-by-salt/.

Reference 4: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/05/fine-dining-in-devon.html.

Reference 5: https://www.lyntonhouseteignmouth.com/.