Odds and Sods July 2026

This will be a summer to remember. I don't think we have had more than one night-time rain shower in at least six weeks. These photos tell the tale.

This is the Tinside Lido in Plymouth looking very inviting, but too early for the crowds. The bay ahead is another pool, containing two thousand years of English maritime history some of it still on the seabed.

Armada Way is the main north south pedestrian thoroughfare in the city, it has just undergone a £30 million transformation, and it starts this end with a selection of war memorials including a statue of Sir Francis Drake and the Plymouth Naval Memorial column built after the first world war and bearing the scars of the second.

The obelisk forms the older First World War memorial while an added lower section forms that of World War 2. There were three identical first world war memorials built in Plymouth, Chatham and Portsmouth. This one was unveiled in 1924. As a Naval memorial, most of those it remembers were lost at sea. The extension for World War 2 was unveiled in 1954. There are 7,251 names from the first war and 15,933 from the second.

Further down Armada Way is this ships anchor. This anchor was presented to the city in 1980 and was on HMS Ark Royal. There have been five Royal Navy ships called Ark Royal. This one was number four, decommissioned in 1979.

Sir Francis Drake spent some time on the first Ark Royal but it was not his flagship which was called Revenge. The First Ark Royal was the flagship of the commander-in-chief Lord Howard of Effingham, during the fight against the Spanish Armada.

W.L. Byers of Sunderland specialised in ship's anchors and was established in the 1880's.

An open square in Armada Way had been set aside for live televising of Wimbledon on an outdoor screen. Again, the early bird catches the worm, photographically, as play hadn't yet started.

Further down Armada Way again and this is a dual purpose solar power sun shade.

I will make a dedicated post at some point on Armada Way. If you arrive in Plymouth by train, this is the end of Armada Way that first greets you. You can just make out the Naval War memorial in the distance.

This is Endsleigh Cottage as it was originally called, a country house near Tavistock that is now a hotel, so anyone can visit, either to stay or to have afternoon tea. Hotel Endsleigh is part of the Polizzi Collection and if you are a fan of Alex Polizzi's Hotel Inspector TV programmes you will know all about them.

The house was originally built by the 6th Duke of Bedford between 1810 and 1816 as a family residence in the style of the picturesque movement. The design movement is self explanatory as it based it's ideas on the popular pictures of the period.

In England the word picturesque, meaning literally "in the manner of a picture; fit to be made into a picture," was a word used as early as 1703. The picturesque style in landscape gardening was a conscious manipulation of Nature to create foregrounds, middlegrounds, and backgrounds in a move to highlight a selection of provocative formal elements.

The house is a grand form of the cottage orné. It has been a Grade I Listed Building since 21 March 1967. It was situated within the manor of Milton Abbot, a former manor belonging to Tavistock Abbey, which had been granted with its lands by King Henry VIII to his ancestor John Russell, 1st Baron Russell (created in 1550 1st Earl of Bedford).

More on Tavistock and its Dukes and history in my Tavistock series.

The house is situated on the east bank of the River Tamar, over which it commands superb views to the south and west. Pevsner stated that "the situation of Endsleigh can hardly be matched". It was usefully positioned as a residence whilst the Duke, normally residing at Woburn Abbey in Bedfordshire, was inspecting his extensive Bedford estates in Devon and Cornwall. Wikipedia

Patrons of the hotel have free rein to wander the superb gardens. The landscaping was designed by Humphry Repton and the grounds originally comprised a plantation of 300 acres, including a thickly wooded slope going down to the river, and gardens of 20 acres. The buildings in the grounds include the Shell Grotto, a polygonal summer-house and the Swiss Cottage.

This is a newly thatched half of a cottage in Lustleigh, Dartmoor. The village has often been named in various publications as being amongst the best or prettiest villages in the country, particularly due to the traditional thatched buildings. In 2025, filming took place through the village for the Harry Potter TV adaptation, using the traditional look as a setting for Godric's Hollow.

I particularly admire the way that the thatcher has blended the weathered thatch next door with the new thatch, using random swirls that as the new thatch darkens will disappear.

Five minutes after this photo was taken the body of politician Ann Widecombe was discovered a few miles away from Lustleigh, at her home. She was brutally murdered, and there followed much controversial media coverage and several conflicting police statements. The controversy is still ongoing, although the mainstream media have already lost interest, Ann Widecombe being a social conservative. Left wing murder victims live for ever in media headlines.

We are rapidly becoming inoculated against our innate horror at violence meted out to political figures as it becomes common for polite chit chat at social occasions to include casual demands for assassination of our political opponents, if they happen to be on the right of the spectrum. Those who jest and those who are serious rarely think to imagine what they are wishing for were it to come true against those politicians they admire.

Right in the centre of the village in it's Romano-British oval burial ground is the Church of St John the Baptist.

In the north aisle stands Datuidoc's Stone dating from around 450-600 AD.

The first part of the current church, including the chancel and the south porch, was built around 1250. The south chapel was added in the early 14th century by the Lord of the Manor, Sir William Prouz.

A notable feature are the remnant doors and steps to access a rood loft, long removed. To find out about rood lofts check out my post on the only remaining rood loft in Devon at Atherington Church.

The church tower was built in the late 14th century. Datuidoc's stone, is a prehistoric engraved stone, engraved with the names Datuidoc and Conhinoc, with possible explanations being "Datuidoc, son of Conhinoc", later suggested to mean "David the son of Gawain". It measures 4 feet (1.2 m) long and 14 inches (36 cm) wide.

It is unclear what the original purpose of the stone is, or even where the original location is. It has been suggested that it may be a boundary marker, but most references indicate that it is likely a grave marker.

Car Tour 6 took place in July so that will be coming up eventually. There are a few preview shots here, starting with this view of the River Tavy which lends its name to Tavistock. I am currently writing up Car Tour 5.

It was a rare cloudier day but still hot and dry. The landscape of Dartmoor was looking more yellow than green on this occasion.

We stopped briefly at two ancient churches on the tour. This is St Peter's at Peter Tavy. It had some unusual sights including a retaining wall like a moat around its exterior, which itself attests to its great age. Down at the bottom of that trench is the original ground level of the building. The burials over a thousand years have raised the level of the churchyard.

There were several of these miniscule grave markers scattered about. These are pauper's grave markers, mostly dating from the early 1700's. They only feature the initials and the year of death of the deceased.

There is a fine squint cut through the wall in the chancel giving a view of the altar from the south transept. This view is looking from the chancel though to the transept. In the south transept is a large group of carved panels.

I will show more of them in a later post but this is a fine example. Sections of early-to-mid 16th-century carved pew-fronts and bench ends, featuring Renaissance motifs and heraldic grotesques, are preserved and mounted on the walls and screen in the south transept/nave area.

This was a snatched shot of Dartmoor ponies. I missed the mother but caught the foal in a rather appropriate example of a Car Tour composition, including the wing mirror and me and my camera, totally unplanned.

This was approaching the end of the tour at the edge of Dartmoor with the top of Bodmin Moor in Cornwall in the distance. Somewhere in between is Endsleigh House Hotel.

I finally got a new phone in July with a camera, leagues ahead of the one I had previously. I only change phones when technology eventually forces me to.

I am still experimenting with the new phone and this strange photo was the result of using its zoom feature which for some reason added a weird digital effect to this scene, which actually made it far more interesting than it would otherwise have been.

More of a weird act of nature than digital technology, this was on the beach nearby. This is Start Bay and is slate or mica schist injected with quartz veins. The contrasting white injections are mineral veins—most commonly quartz or calcite—formed when the host rock cracked under intense tectonic stress and hot, mineral-rich fluids filled and crystallized inside the fractures.

Lustleigh church and its stone carved pillar were made only a blink of an eye ago compared to this rock which was formed 400 million years ago.

These are the beach huts at Goodrington. Have a look at my post on Goodrington Cliff Gardens.

Back on the beach and another wonder of nature which beats anything you might find at the Tate Gallery.

On top of Bolberry Head at sunset, hence the orange glow of the very dried grass.

Back in Start Bay and this memorial was placed on the beach by the US Army after World War 2 to thank the local people for evacuating form a large area to provide a D-Day training area.

THIS MEMORIAL

WAS PRESENTED BY THE

UNITED STATES ARMY

AUTHORITIES TO THE

PEOPLE OF THE SOUTH

HAMS WHO GENEROUSLY

LEFT THEIR HOMES AND

THEIR LANDS TO PROVIDE

A BATTLE PRACTICE AREA

FOR THE SUCCESSFUL

ASSAULT ON NORMANDY

IN JUNE 1944

THEIR ACTION RESULTED

IN THE SAVING OF MANY

HUNDREDS OF LIVES AND

CONTRIBUTED IN NO SMALL

MEASURE TO THE SUCCESS

OF THE OPERATION

THE AREA INCLUDED THE

VILLAGES OF BLACKAWTON

CHILLINGTON, EAST ALLINGTON,

SLAPTON, STOKENHAM

STRETE AND TORCROSS

TOGETHER WITH MANY

OUTLYING FARMS & HOUSES

It was also Fair Week in Kingsbridge. The historical roots of the charter market and fair in Kingsbridge are 565 years old, dating back to 1461. However, the modern iteration of Kingsbridge Fair Week as a community festival is 57 years old, having been revived by a newly formed committee in 1969.

Meanwhile on a nearby cross country walk, the summer views after an early harvest are spectacular. No commentary for this short set as I will be doing the full walk as a separate post in the middle of winter as a fond look back at summer.

Included on the walk was a quick visit to Ford Independent Chapel a ruined church that I have covered in a previous post. The Independent Chapel at Ford.