Today’s trip out was to two locations, the first of which was Powderham Castle, which to my shame I had never heard of before this trip was organised. Whilst travelling to the castle this morning, I heard one of my friends describe it as a fortified Manor House, so I had no idea what to expect.
As a castle, it was not an imposing building, nowhere near on the scale of say, Arundel – which is huge. But, as a fortified Manor House, yes it was interesting.
Like many of these places, I could not imagine my self living in them. But there were some areas which I did like. I have to confess that the drawing room did look quite comfortable, and I could see myself resting there with one of the books from the library.
For the size of the house, the library was huge, there must be a couple of thousand books and what I really liked was that whilst many of the books have been caged off, there were whole shelves which weren’t and we were quite welcome to take a book out and browse. Lovely.
One of the information panels I read, mentioned damage done to the house during the civil war. I spoke to one of the guides about it, and she took great delight is telling me how the house with 400 royalist troops inside had been besieged by the parliamentarians for 6 months. The Roundheads taking full advantage of the livestock from the local area. The guide took me outside to see the different brickwork where one of the two towers at each end of the building had been destroyed when the house was bombarded.
The house surrendered after six months, and the occupants were allowed to leave on the understanding that they would take no further part in the conflict. I don’t like to think what the state of the house was inside, it’s quite big, but not huge. Having 400 people trapped inside for that length of time would have meant it would be pretty gruesome.
After Powderham Castle, we moved on to Dawlish. I’ll admit thati wasn’t really bothered about visiting the seaside town, but I will also advise that I was mistaken to have that feeling. It turned into one of the most relaxing times in the tour.
Disembarking from the coach very close to the railway station, we walked under the line to the seafront. It was interesting to look along the line to see the aftermath of the damage done by the 2014 storm which demolished the line. The bulwark looks impressive, but even with that, I wonder how long it will last with the seas unrelenting hammering?
Lots of seagulls, generally they are quite aggressive unpleasant birds, but oh my, their grace and dexterity in flight is an absolute delight to behold. With there being a fairly stiff breeze, their Acrobatics was as entertaining as any TV programme.
We moved back to the landward side of the railway track and found an ice cream parlour. I had a triple tub – mint chocolate chip, funky banana and carribean coconut. Elayne had a triple cone with vanilla, coffee and chocolate. We took these to the brook, so that we could watch the swans.
There was a pair of black swans with five young cygnets. They were just so lovely to watch, but I would worry about them, I am sure one moment of inattention would have meant the ever-present gulls would be in to grab one.
We paused at a local bar right next to where the coach was waiting for use to have a drink before boarding. Followed by a ride along the coastal road with some amazing views.
It was a delightful day.
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