Month: April 2010

  • Teignmouth Harbour

    Teignmouth Harbour

    More pictures from Teignmouth, 23 March 2010. Looking from New Quay across to the Fish Quay, with Shaldon Bridge and the sheds of Teignmouth Docks visible  in the background. New Quay from Back Beach. The quay was constructed in 1820 by George Templer to facilitate the shipping of Dartmoor granite from Haytor.  The building under…

  • Alder leaves

    Alder leaves

  • The salting sun

    The salting sun

    Anybody searching Teignmouth for the ghost of John Keats is following a well-trodden path. Charles Causley wrote a poem inspired by his visit in the 1950s: Keats at Teignmouth Spring, 1818 By the wild sea-wall I wandered Blinded by the salting sun, While the sulky Channel thundered Like an old Trafalgar gun. And I watched…

  • Robert Louis Stevenson

    Robert Louis Stevenson

    Robert Louis Stevenson (1850 – 1894). Portrait by Girolamo Nerli, 1892. *  *  *  *  * I’ve recently finished reading Claire Harman’s thoughtful and affectionate biography of Robert Louis Stevenson. He seems to have been an unusually likeable person as writers go, though perhaps best appreciated at a distance. As a child I found Treasure…

  • Blackthorn

    Blackthorn

    Blackthorn bushes growing beside the River Exe near Powderham.

  • River Exe near Turf Lock

    The Turf Lock Hotel was built in 1827 at the mouth of the Exeter Ship Canal to provide accommodation for the lock keeper and the crews of vessels using the canal. Looking south towards the mouth of the river.

  • Hazel

    – The Hedges by this time are beginning to leaf – John Keats: Letter to B. R. Haydon – 8 April 1818

  • Back Beach

  • Back Beach

    Teignmouth has a long tradition of shipbuilding, from at least the 17th century. By the turn of the 19th century there were three shipyards in Teignmouth itself, and three in Shaldon and Ringmore on the other side of the estuary. The industry declined in the early 20th century, but in 1921 Francis Charles Morgan-Giles bought…