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This walk encompassed Poets, Pixies and the most stunning parish church in Devon. As someone who has visited more parish churches than most people, I honestly would say that if you had to choose one church in Devon that epitomises the wealth of our forefathers, the beauty of our craftsmen and layers of history, then it would have to be St Mary’s in the very appropriately named Ottery St Mary!
Parking next to the Land of Canaan (it really is called that) which was bought by a local Victorian philanthropist to provide a recreation area for the people of Ottery St Mary, we headed south in search of Pixies! Ottery St Mary’s most famous son is the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge who was born in a vicarage opposite the beautiful two‑towered St Mary’s Church where his father was the vicar and also headmaster of the local school. Sadly the vicarage where he was born no longer stands but there is a blue plaque that marks its location at least.
The weather all day was what the Germans call Dunkelflaute – basically no sun, no wind, and thick mist blanketing the area all day. It actually made it all very atmospheric and despite the look it was not cold in the slightest. Once again, though, the recent heavy rains made the ground in places very boggy and on more than one occasion we had to amend our route to avoid particularly muddy conditions. And the River Otter was definitely higher and faster than usual.
We headed south towards the Tumbling Weir. This unusually shaped weir reveals that even rural areas like Ottery St Mary could be swept up into the Industrial Revolution. Naturally there had long been a corn mill serving the farmers of this area but in 1788 a wool mill was created to process wool. A new leat had to be built at a higher angle to create the force to power various machines operating at up to 30 horsepower. The Tumbling Weir was the means of removing excess water into the river so that the water wheels didn’t go too fast! There was some very impressive mathematics and engineering at work. In the 19th century the wool mill was converted into a silk mill. You can still see the old mill building, but it is now flats.
We carried on following the River Otter downstream looking for pixies… in particular the Pixies' Parlour. This is a cave overlooking the River Otter with a story that goes back to the earliest days of Christianity. The legend tells of local pixies, fearing that the arrival of Christian church bells would end their rule over the land, trying to prevent the arrival of church bells from Wales by enchanting the escorting monks and leading them toward the cliffs at Sidmouth. The spell was accidentally broken when a monk cried out after stubbing his toe on a cliff edge. This allowed them to return to Ottery, install the bells and signify the end of pixie rule. Yet the legend claims the magic was never fully dispelled: each year the pixies re‑emerge, capture the town’s bell‑ringers, and imprison them in the Pixies’ Parlour until the Vicar rescues them. Every June the story is re‑enacted by Ottery’s Cubs and Brownies.
But actually there is an even more interesting connection with Samuel Taylor Coleridge to these caves. You will notice that a lot of people have carved their names in the sandstone walls of the caves including Samuel Taylor Coleridge himself – STC 1789 – proving that this was a favourite location of his. In 1793 as a 21‑year‑old he returned to these caves with a company of young women. On that occasion he composed the “Song of the Pixies” for his audience of young ladies including the verse:
Welcome, Ladies! to the cell
Where the blameless Pixies dwell:
But thou, sweet Nymph! proclaimed our Faery Queen,
With what obeisance meet
Thy presence shall we greet?
For lo! attendant on thy steps are seen
Graceful Ease in artless stole,
And white-robed Purity of soul,
With Honour's softer mien;
Mirth of the loosely-flowing hair,
And meek-eyed Pity eloquently fair,
Whose tearful cheeks are lovely to the view,
As snow-drop wet with dew.
Standing at the cave entrance looking out over the River Otter (to which the poet also wrote a poem: To the River Otter), you can really imagine a youthful Samuel Taylor Coleridge smiling and cavorting with his companions and playfully composing his poem to impress his lady friends. From here everything would have looked identical to how it looked in 1793 when he entertained his entourage.
From here we had to negotiate some muddy but beautiful riverside paths heading towards Wiggaton, all made more atmospheric by those Dunkelflaute conditions. We had hoped to take a look at the late Victorian St Edward the Confessor Church but sadly it was locked. Our hearts always sink when we find locked churches – especially on a Sunday! So we had decided to visit the nearby manor of Knightstone.
Knightstone Manor is now a private residence but from the bridle path you can catch a glimpse of what is one of the best‑preserved medieval manors in the country. It was originally built by Richard de Knightstone who sold it on to the Bittlesgate family who held it for over a century. Sadly the last of the Bittlesgates died without an heir so the land passed to Lady Cecily Bonville (yes, the Bonvilles of Shute Manor who had fought against the Courtenays for supremacy in Devon during the Wars of the Roses). She married into the Grey family who were descendants of Elizabeth Woodville (The White Queen) who, as a commoner, had controversially married Edward IV. This royal connection was to have tragic consequences for the Greys (and for the ownership of Knightstone Manor). Lady Cecily and her husband used their wealth to add a significant aisle to St Mary’s Church known as the Dorset Aisle in honour of their title of Marquess and Marchioness of Dorset.
Lady Cecily and Thomas Grey’s son was Henry Grey who married into the Royal Family himself with the hand of Frances Tudor – her father had been Henry VIII’s good friend Charles Brandon (played by Henry Cavill in The Tudors) and her mother was Mary Tudor, Henry VIII’s sister. With these two royal connections, the Protestant Henry Grey (better known as the Duke of Suffolk) tried to frustrate the accession of the Catholic Mary on the death of Edward VI in 1553. His plan consisted of putting his 15‑year‑old daughter Lady Jane Grey on the throne with her two royal connections. Her unhappy reign lasted just nine days as the army stayed loyal to Henry VIII’s daughter Mary. Father and daughter were imprisoned in the Tower of London where they might have stayed had not widespread rebellions broken out the year later, and both were beheaded. Their lands and, needless to say, their properties like Knightstone Manor became forfeit. The house was sold by the government to the Sherman family who married into the Drakes of Ashe (near to Axminster) and related to Sir Francis Drake. It was renovated in the 1940s by the son of a wealthy tea merchant called Colonel Reginald Cooper who took delight in buying run‑down historical properties and returning them to something of their former glory. So it is particularly nice to see such a historic house still very much in good condition and obviously cherished by its current owners.
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From here we headed north to return to Ottery St Mary to make sure we could get to the church whilst it was still open. Ottery St Mary really has kept much of its charm, especially in the centre with old coaching inns, Victorian buildings and of course its magnificent 14th‑century church.
St Mary’s Church is very unusual in that it has not one but two towers! It was renovated at the behest of the Bishop of Exeter John Grandisson in the 14th century, something in the manner of Exeter Cathedral itself. In fact it is often referred to as a miniature Exeter Cathedral. The reason for this design was because it was supposed to be more than just a parish church; it was to be a church for a college built next door to train parish priests throughout the Bishopric of Exeter. This was obviously a personal project for the Grandisson family as a whole, as the effigy of his brother Otto and his wife lies within the church. As Bishop, John was buried within the walls of Exeter Cathedral. It should be said that one of the Grandisson descendants was Lady Cecily Bonville of Knightstone Manor which perhaps explains why she added a wing to the already substantial church in 1520. Sadly there is no trace of the college as they also got swept away in the Reformation, mainly on the basis that many of the priests were involved in chantry prayers for wealthy patrons.
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Looking at the altar screen, you might think that the church survived the worst ravages of the Reformation but you would be wrong. All those statues had originally been hacked out, many of the beautiful paintings were whitewashed over and there is no sign of a rood screen remaining. The statues you see today on the altar were only added in the 1930s by Herbert Read from Exeter – and they were only painted in the 1970s!
A quick glance at the magnificent ceilings immediately evokes a cathedral’s interior. They really are stunning and in a variety of styles. Interesting that one of the bosses on the ceiling was used by the Royal Mail as the basis of a nativity stamp once back in 1974. But on the west aisle there are some bizarre faces with big mouths staring down at you. What might they be? Well apparently they were originally for bell ropes to hang down through. Makes perfect sense when you think about it, but obviously whoever carved them had something of a sense of humour!
St Mary’s is one of the few churches to have an astronomical clock showing the relative positions of the sun and the moon – and one of the oldest surviving mechanical clocks in the country. You can tell its antiquity in that it shows the earth at the centre of the solar system. It shows yet another connection to its inspiration, the Cathedral of Exeter, which has its own astronomical clock.
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But as always we like to look out for interesting memorials and this church has more than most. Of course, the connection to the Coleridge family is very obvious – and not just to Samuel Taylor Coleridge who has a statue to greet you outside, but also to his father who was a vicar here and also to the Duke Coleridges, which include the Lord Chief John Duke Coleridge who built the Patteson Cross at Fenny Bridges we visited the week before. A private memorial to the Coleridge‑Taylors shows that they had 10 children, many of whom died young. Samuel did better than most, living to the age of 62. I was more surprised to find that he lost not one but two brothers out in the East Indies, one at the age of 22 and the other at 31. Many of the Coleridges are buried in the graveyard outside but not Samuel Taylor who, as the memorial makes clear, is buried at Highgate in London.
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There is a fascinating memorial to the Right Reverend William Hart Coleridge – nephew of Samuel Taylor. He went on to become the first Bishop of Barbados, Leeward Islands and British Guiana from 1824 to 1842. Now this was a critical period in Caribbean history when slavery was abolished throughout the British Empire in 1834 but which had greater impact on the sugar islands than anywhere else. The memorial proudly proclaims that ‘by his exertions on their behalf greatly hastened the emancipation of the slaves throughout his diocese.’ And indeed the church provided intense moral pressure on the first Whig government in a generation to free the slaves. One wonders if his example perhaps inspired that other famous John Patteson Coleridge at nearby Feniton to agree to become a missionary to the Pacific which was similarly blighted by the slavery tactics of ‘blackbirders’ which ultimately cost John Patteson Coleridge his life!
One more Coleridge memorial that stood out was that of Lieutenant Luke Frederick Rennell Coleridge whose memorial says he was killed ‘on the parapet of the Enemy’s Trench at Givenchy La Bassée in 1914.’ This is actually one of those pre‑Imperial War Graves Commission war memorials which the great and good could afford and which the authorities realised that many common soldiers could not. Also its wording suggests an early‑war heroic view of the war before the attritional nature of trench warfare sapped that enthusiasm. Even its epitaph ‘Splendid They Passed’ evokes a Victorian or Edwardian view of war rather than the more cynical 20th‑century view that would develop in its place.
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Another fascinating anti‑slavery memorial was that of Commander Frederick Abraham Smith who had served in the Royal Navy throughout the Napoleonic Wars (or the Great French War as his memorial refers to it) and then on the West Africa Squadron which attempted to suppress the slave trade after it was outlawed throughout the British Empire in 1807. His memorial goes on to say with some pride that he helped save one particular “negro boy, now well known as Bishop Crowther of the Niger.” And indeed Bishop Crowther was a household name in the Victorian era as the very first black Anglican Bishop anywhere in the world. He was rescued as a 12‑year‑old slave in a remarkable assault on the slave towns of Rio Pongo where the Royal Navy and Marines showed outstanding bravery to release slaves awaiting transportation to the Americas. Sadly in the process an explosion saw Commander Smith lose an eye and this would afflict him for the rest of his life, but as this memorial makes clear, he was undoubtedly proud of losing it in such a good cause.
Another interesting memorial was to Lieutenant Clement George Whitby of the 17th Regiment of Foot who was killed at the Battle of Maiwand in Afghanistan in 1880. This was one of the catastrophic defeats of the British Army (not long after the defeat at Isandlwana by the Zulus in 1879) and it reinforced the doubts already felt by many Victorians about the wisdom of intervening in distant conflicts, and would see the pro‑Imperial policies of Disraeli replaced by the more cautious approach of Gladstone - which, ironically, would soon lead to another imperial disaster with Gordon at Khartoum. In India he had transferred to the Bombay Staff Corps and was attached to the 4th Bombay N.I. He had founded the Kandahar News to keep the soldiers in touch with events in and around the occupation of Afghanistan, back in India and even back at home. Many of his stories were published in the Times of India too. He had been given command of the baggage guard at Maiwand and after fighting off two assaults he joined the survivors of the battle returning to Kandahar. Sadly, within sight of the walls of safety, he was shot in the head and killed.
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And one more interesting memorial was that to Sir Ernest Mason Satow G.C.M.G. Now as someone who lived and worked in Japan I was particularly interested to find this memorial. Originally it hung in the British Embassy in Peking (as it was called then) until the Communist Chinese took it over unceremoniously in 1949. He was one of the very first British diplomats involved in Japan as it opened up to the West in the 1860s. He wrote a famous book called A Diplomat in Japan where he details his remarkable career. Within days of arriving in Japan in 1862 as a 19‑year‑old interpreter, a British merchant was killed on the Tōkaidō road, an incident that soon escalated into the Anglo‑Satsuma War of 1863 — one of the early shocks that exposed the deep tensions within late‑Tokugawa Japan and later inspired elements of The Last Samurai. The British found themselves drawn into the complex struggle between the Shogunate and powerful domains such as Satsuma and Chōshū, and Satow quickly became indispensable as an interpreter, being one of the few Englishmen who could speak Japanese with real proficiency. He would play a similar role during the Meiji Restoration of 1868, when Japan finally overthrew the Shogunate and embarked on a determined programme of modernisation in which Britain was particularly influential. Satow would go on to serve in Siam, Uruguay and Morocco before returning to Japan in 1895 until the Boxer Rebellion of 1900. Indeed he played a role in encouraging the Japanese to despatch their forces to help the European legations who were besieged in various cities and ports across China, realising that Japanese troops could get to China far faster than Europeans could manage it. He was then transferred to China to help with the negotiations to end that conflict. In fact it was his signature that was added to represent Britain in the Boxer Protocols which affixed the compensation claims in the aftermath of the war. He was also important in promoting the Anglo‑Japanese Alliance of 1902 and watched first‑hand from China the defeat of Russia at the hands of the Japanese who felt secure with their British alliance to be able to wage war with the Russians. He was quite a remarkable man and is regarded as one of the most important observers of this critical period in Japanese history.
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Ottery St Mary really does show how these small Devon towns could have connections across the world and through literature and poetry even. Samuel Taylor Coleridge can definitely lay claim to being the father of English Romanticism alongside his good friend William Wordsworth and surely much of that inspiration for the love of nature and beauty is from his formative years here in Ottery St Mary and in his father’s church over the road from his house! I cannot recommend Ottery St Mary as a whole and St Mary’s Church in particular highly enough. They offer the perfect mix of beauty – be it natural or man‑made – and layer upon layer of history. You have to love Devon.
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