Salcombe Regis

Across the cliffs from Dunscombe and Lincombe and we finally descend the steep path into Salcombe, to take a look around the churchyard. Salcombe must be one of the smallest and prettiest villages around here, a collection of maybe not even a dozen houses and a few small farms, no shops or pubs and just the one lonely phone box. If you like a nice quiet beach, there is a good mile walk down the combe to Salcombe beach, accessed by a hundred or so steps. The walk back to the top of the hill from the beach can best be described as knackering.

The complicated history of Salcombe Church is best explained by W.G.Hoskins in his book: Devon, published in 1954.

"The village is situated in a warm and fertile combe facing S., about a mile back from the sea. The church (St. Peter) was originally a 12th century building with a N. aisle. About 1300 the chancel was lengthened, a S. aisle added, and the arches of the N. arcade remodeled, leaving the Norman pillars. About 1430 the aisles were widened, and given new windows, and the W. tower added."

The church also went through extensive renovation in about 1850. The landscape is remeniscent of the painting 'Our English Coasts' by William Holman Hunt, which was actually painted in Kent. We leave the village by climbing the small but steep hill to the west, pausing for a rest on the war memorial situated at the top of the hill. Even a parish as small as this one has its own stone memorial to the local men killed fighting in the two world wars, no village seems exempt from this.

after the rain

After the rain there is another hot summer day so I can get up Salcombe Hill and walk for a while.

I have a map of the area and noticed that there is an interesting looking footpath that I haven't walked up yet, so locating the road on the other side of Salcombe I walk up what appears to be a small private track that leads to a farm. As I get closer I begin to get the impression that the place is a bit run down as there are abandoned cars scattered around. The farm turns out to be a cabin near a large chicken shed. I am expecting that at any moment a dog will start barking but all is deserted. The lane should turn into a footpath somewhere. I walk around the perimeter of a long electrified fence but cannot find any trace of the footpath; every direction leads to a dead end and I am starting to wonder if the path is obstructed, but eventually I notice what looks like a good footpath on the other side of an electric fence and a hedge. I can't get to the path without damaging the fence and it begins to dawn on me that I have misread the map and I am in fact in completely the wrong place. I scurry myself back out again slightly thankful that it was deserted. A good lousy piece of map reading on my part.

I get around the corner, closer now to the edge of the cliff which has good views back towards Sidmouth and eastwards up the coast towards Beer, (it being the last white cliff in the photo's)This is the quietest place that I have been for a while.

There are no roads within hearing distance, and I can hear nothing mechanical of any sort, in fact I can't really hear anything apart from the sound of the wind blowing through the grass. Farther along there are some birds and then a few sheep, pottering away in the late afternoon, but the silence here is striking.

When I first came to Devon as a child one of the first things that I noticed were the unusual bright red puddles in the red earth. Back home, earth was usually a dark brown colour, or could sometimes be a bright rusty orange clay. The red surprised me and it took a few years to properly appreciate these alarming red puddles.

Then in the last two weeks of September, when all the holiday makers have gone and all the children are back at school we have about two weeks of solid sunshine. Last Sunday I finally made it to Salcombe beach (where these photo's weren't taken) on the last day of the good

weather. The sun was lovely but the wind was beginning to have a chill to it, telling us that summer had passed.