Last Thursday we headed down to the South West to visit family. The journey is often full of traffic on a Friday with many people leaving London for the weekend, and no matter what time of day it is we often get caught in queues we’d rather not sit in, so our new-ish tactic is to travel down the day before, stopping somewhere along the way. A long time favourite stop is Lyme Regis, and that was our plan for the Thursday afternoon all being well with the traffic.
This time the traffic cooperated, the weather less so. At times it was almost impossible to see through the short, but heavy downpours and the majority of the cars around us slowed significantly to cope with the conditions. Not all, but most and we arrived shortly after lunchtime despite the Sat Nav’s best efforts to have us stranded after being unable to reroute around a closed road. The diversion didn’t look that helpful either, the arrow pointed back the way we’d come and after that we weren’t sure, so we headed towards Bridport and then along the coast instead.
It was a grey day in Lyme, and our plans were to get lunch and have a bit of a wander. The cafe we chose for lunch offered some alternative pasty fillings - chicken and chorizo for me, and minted lamb for MOH, both tasty and on the spicier side. People arriving in the cafe started to arrive in varying degrees of wet weather gear, and more noticeably wet wet weather gear. So instead of heading for a wander around the Cobb, which while wonderful is more exposed than we wanted to be, we tried something new and followed the River Lim Path to Uplyme.
The path starts in the town where you walk past colourful cottages and then heads inland following the River Lim past old mills and through a wooded valley. It’s about 1.5 miles in total and is really well signposted. The advantage for us, and others on the trail, was that not only was it beautiful but the woodlands provided some shelter from the rain. There is a pub at Uplyme and a bus route which you can take to Lyme Regis, but after a brief pause we headed back on foot. As we reached the town again the rain got heavier, and so our first thoughts were to get to the car and into the dry. We’d seen on the news at lunchtime the announcement that the Royal Family were heading to Balmoral and quickly caught up on the most recent news before heading off to Chard and our B&B for the night.
Chard is less than thirty minutes from Lyme Regis, and I’ve since discovered is the southernmost town in Somerset, and one of the highest towns. It’s other unusual feature is a stream running along either side of Fore Street, and given the downpour that we got caught in while looking for somewhere to eat that evening it also had one down the paths too. We arrived in our chosen Indian restaurant much damper than we’d been all day despite it being a relatively short walk from where we were staying, and where we were when we heard the sadly anticipated announcement of the Queen’s death by Buckingham Palace.
I’d chosen to stay in Chard due to its proximity to Forde Abbey, a house and garden we’d not visited before. The house is home to the Mortlake tapestries, and has hosted Cistercian monks, was implicated in the Monmouth Rebellion and more recently was the backdrop to the Hollywood adaption of Thomas Hardy’s 'Far From the Madding Crowd’ which I’ve not seen.
The gardens started with the walled garden which framed the house beautifully. As you’ll see, unlike in Sandwich (where we didn’t manage to eat a sandwich), this time we were able to find chard growing in Chard, as well as some giant pumpkins!
CHARD IN CHARD
The wildflower ‘swirl’ (above) was a really nice addition to the more formal and traditional aspects of the garden. There was also a Bog garden with gunnera leaves easily 5ft tall, and the Centenary Fountain which celebrates 100 years of the Roper family at the property, reaching 160ft into the air. We caught the first display of the day, and had been warned to check the wind direction so managed (by luck) to be on the right side of the lake. Unlike the two people in the swing seat on the right in the picture below. They got a little wet, shrieked quite a bit and learnt that an umbrella over their legs didn’t provide much respite.
It was a great place to visit, and thankfully we were lucky with the weather (and fountains) so arrived in Devon relatively dry.
On Saturday we headed out again, heading over to Anstey’s Cove and the Bishop’s Walk in Torquay following the walk along the coastal path, where I snapped these views, before retracing our steps and heading down into the Cove for lunch. These are the views you expect of Devon, and it didn’t disappoint. In fact it did so much more, and you wouldn’t have thought that two days could be more different, but we were very grateful.
On Sunday, we were due to go to a car show but that was cancelled out of respect to Queen Elizabeth. So instead we drove over to Tiverton and spent some time exploring Knightshayes with it’s post-war garden, 19th century parkland and Gothic Revival house. The thing that struck both MOH & I was how green and lush the countryside looked, and how different to the parched landscape we’d become accustomed to in our part of South London.
It had plenty of our favourites - topiary for me, and cannas for MOH. As well as another walled kitchen garden. We’d stopped at this National Trust property once before, it was back in September 2014 so I’m not surprised MOH didn’t remember, and we didn’t go in the house that time either. Looking back at those photos some things have understandably changed, and there’s scope for me to do a ‘then and now’ post as well as a look inside the house looking at the ceilings and decor in more detail. But what ceilings, for many years they remained covered with a false ceiling concealing their beauty - imagine discovering those!
We ended our weekend by breaking our return journey with a stop in Marlborough, another favourite spot of ours with its long high street full of shops and with parking right down the centre. We used to say we had a regular cafe in Marlborough as it was one of our often stops on the way to Devon, but that sadly closed a few years ago. There are plenty of others to choose from though so we haven’t stopped visiting.
This time we noticed a new farm shop and cafe had opened just along from where we parked. And so we stopped here for lunch - a giant veggie sausage roll and the biggest slice of coffee and walnut cake. I’ve a feeling that the Eversfield Farm Shop could become our new favourite there, and it’s a fantastic looking period building too.
We left there full, and with some supplies from the farm shop too. Then we headed over the road to pick up some slightly more ordinary every day groceries before another couple of hours in the car home. Travelling there on a Thursday, and then back again on a Monday definitely improved our journey traffic-wise, and meant we had more time to explore a wonderful part of the country.
I’m also planning to make my own version of veggie sausage rolls, I just need to source some puff pastry!
