Brixham

Lattice stinkhorn, in the house's garden. Isn't it weird?
And it smells bad and is covered in bluebottles.

Brixham is quite a lively town with a good community spirit. Volunteers have kept the open air seawater swimming pool open when the council decided to close it. The fish harbour seems quite busy, and the marina is like all marinas all over the world – full of unused boats, but there are enough actually in action to give something to look at and decorate the sea views nicely.

The lighthouse at the end of the breakwater.

 There is a huge hard and slipway, which it turns out was built in 1943 for D Day preparations. Two boats from here were lost in the Slapton Sands debacle, and an American division embarked here for Utah beach.

Brixham

We visited Greenway, Agatha Christie’s house above the Dart; the gardens and the boathouse  are lovely, but the family seemed to collect all manner of objects to which I wouldn’t give house room. Meissen figures were probably the least objectionable, so that shows you. The original, demolished, house was built by Sir Humphrey Gilbert’s father. John Davis, of the Davis Strait, also came from Dartmouth.

Coleton Fishacre is gorgeous. It was built in 1928 by Rupert D’Oyley Carte, the Gilbert and Sullivan impresario, who owned the Savoy Theatre, Savoy Hotel and Simpson’s in the Strand,  in arts and crafts style, with art deco décor. It’s just wonderful. You long to live there. The gardens are full of exotic subtropical plants and have glorious views of the sea.

Coleton Fishacre

We also had an outing to Dartmouth, which is always nice.

Kingswear, from the ferry across the Dart

House in Dartmouth

 But the main occupation has been beach and swimming. The weather has been amazing, hot, sunny and settled. It’s all a bit unEnglish – we go out without making provisions for a change, so no raincoats in the car, or cardigans. We have all got  slightly burned spots where we missed the suncream – in my case it’s on my back, which burned through the sea water, because I’ve been in and out of the sea all day long. So have the others, and I am very proud of my older grandson swimming miles out of his depth to buoys – always with a grownup, of course. And younger grandson bravely tolerated waves splashing over his head, which is a huge leap forward.  In one  cove, we saw a seal, which swam up to Will and Leila and nibbled their toes gently. It seemed to want them to tickle its tummy, but they were a bit nervous of its teeth. It clearly wanted to play and held Leila with its flippers.

Friendly seal

Atlas's first experience of the sea. He envied labradors,
spaniels and retrievers, but fortunately realised
that he can't swim. 

On the way back, we stopped at another National Trust property, Killerton. The grounds are wonderful, with a mulberry tree where I pigged myself on ripe black mulberries; but the house isn’t up to much. There is a very interesting costume collection, with real clothes worn by ordinary people, not designer stuff. There are some fifties dresses, made at home from patterns, and an amazing knitted wedding dress, worn in, I think, 1972. It was a November wedding and the bride’s mother knitted this wonderful dress, with train and lacy knit sleeves. Also the story of the house was very interesting. The estate was owned by a political family, the Aclands. During the war the owner converted from liberalism to socialism, and felt private ownership of land was wrong. He decided to sell the estate, but his wife, who had been running it during the war, felt it would be wrong to break it up and possibly have owners who didn’t care for the land or the tenants. So they gave the lot – 17,000 acres – to the National Trust! Talk about putting your money where your mouth is.