Exeter Cathedral
Today I travelled to Exeter. This took three hours, by train – they really do go slow through Cornwall. Surprisingly the train was pretty full – there were a lot of passengers getting on and off at all of the little stations.
So I got to Exeter St Davids at lunchtime and decided to walk to my hotel, The White Hart. This was a mistake – it was nearly a mile, with lots of hills, and i was pulling my big suitcase. When I leave on Friday I think I’ll get a taxi.
The White Hart, like the Longboat Inn at Penzance, appeared when I booked it to be a pub with rooms. In the case of the Longboat that was true. I haven’t really mentioned it much, but I wasn’t impressed. I was in a pretty small, poky room, and getting in and out of the bathroom took a fair amount of planning – throw the towels in first, then push the door fully open, step in, shut the door, and you can use the loo….. The White Hart, on the other hand, is both older and newer. Older because the front part of the hotel is a very old inn – allegedly 15th century in places. Newer, because there’s a brand-new accommodation block behind the old part that’s fully up-to-date. Much better – I have a standard, Premier Inn-style room this time.
What about Exeter? Well, I walked up to the Cathedral area (the Cathedral Close) and was suitably knocked out. The Cathedral sits in the middle of the Close so it can be appreciated fully. (This is in contrast to York Minster, say, which is very much hemmed-in by the surrounding buildings.) I took a few photos.
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At back of Cathedral Close
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Exeter Cathedral
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Part of Cathedral Close
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Exeter Cathedral
Later I went down to an area called The Quay. This is an area on the River Exe, at the edge of town, where quays were built for boats. Originally the boats came up the Exe but this was blocked by weirs downstream. The citizens of Exeter then built the first canal in England, the Exeter Ship Canal, alongside the river, and terminated it at – the Quay. Initially just handling barges, by the 18th century it was taking sea-going ships. It all fell into decline during the 19th and 20th centuries as ship sizes continued to increase, but in the last 20 or 30 years the whole area has been restored, re-purposed and generally smarted up. Cue brasseries and restaurants in old warehouses, lots of apartments, and general improvement of the area. It looks very good, I have to say, and I went back to one of the pubs for a meal this evening.
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