Exploring East Devon

If you look at your map of Paignton you will see that it is located in Tor Bay. This is part of the much larger Lyme Bay which stretches from Start Point in the south to Portland Bill in the east. In the middle of Lyme Bay, to the east of Tor Bay, are the seaside resorts of Seaton and Sidmouth, with the smaller villages of Beer and Branscombe between them.

Lyme Bay and Tor Bay offer the only protected deep water along the South coast of Britain and so it is very common to see large ships anchored here during the winter storms before they travel up towards Dover and the North Sea. That protection has long encouraged people to build fishing towns along the coast.

Close to the edge of the border with the county of Dorset, humans have lived in the Seaton area for over 4,000 years but it wasn’t officially recognised as a town until 1005 AD. For many hundreds of years Seaton was an important supply port but with the coming of the railways its harbour lost a lot of trade. The town boasts one of the world’s first concrete bridges, built over the River Axe. As with many south-coast resorts, Seaton developed as a holiday destination in the 19th century with many new houses being built.

One of the most curious attractions of Seaton is the 3-mile narrow gauge tramway, built between 1969 and 1971, which runs through the Axe Valley between Seaton and Colyton. The miniature trams - they are about half the usual scale of original trams - run on a disused railway line.

Travel west along the coast from Seaton and you come to the pretty seaside town of Sidmouth, as ancient as Seaton and equally important. It remained a fishing port right up until the Georgian era when, in 1819, King George III’s son Edward, Duke of Kent, his wife and baby daughter (the future Queen Victoria) stayed in a house on the seafront. Following this royal seal of approval the town became popular as a holiday destination and with the opening of the railway in 1874 there was more opportunity for visitors to arrive.

As its name suggests, Sidmouth lies at the mouth of the River Sid in a valley surrounded by rolling, green hills and, like Seaton, is on the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site and the South West Coast Path. The town has a reputation as a pleasant, genteel kind of place which is a popular holiday resort for older tourists. It has kept a good range of independent shops, including an excellent traditional department store with a reasonably-priced café, and has a delightful cinema where you are less likely to be disturbed by the rustle of popcorn and more likely to hear the chink of teacups in the upper circle. There are pleasant walks to be had along the seafront and further along the cliffs - although the coast rises and falls steeply, so it's not easy waking.

Every August the sleepy town comes alive to the sounds of drums, singing and the heady smell of incense and other substances as the Sidmouth Folk Festival arrives providing an opportunity to see Morris dancers and folk groups, visit alternative lifestyle displays and sample all kinds of weird and wonderful foodstuffs.

It is perhaps surprising that such a small and relatively quiet little town as Sidmouth is the home of an observatory and planetarium. Completed in 1912, the Norman Lockyer Observatory operates as a science education project.
Between Seaton and Sidmouth are two smaller villages. Beer is a typical small fishing village with a small quay and steep streets leading down to the harbour. It also has an extensive set of underground caves, left over from limestone quarrying. Beer limestone was a popular building material for centuries - Exeter cathedral is faced in it - and you can now explore the caves with a guide. It was caves such as these that made the coast an ideal haunt for smugglers - men who illegally imported valuable wines and luxury goods by sea.

Next to Beer is the picturesque village of Branscombe, full of thatched cottages that appear in the photographs of almost every Devon calendar. It hit the headlines in 2007 when a huge cargo ship was wrecked off the shore - causing chaos as looters flooded the village to strip the goods from the ship. It took over two years to remove the ship. (See StopPress from February 2007 at www.laltorbay.co.uk/stoppress).

So don't be fooled by the sleepy charms of East Devon today. It has a livelier history and a busier present than you might think at first glance.