Coleton Fishacre, Berry Pomeroy Castle & Haccombe Church

If I split my hols I normally do a 4+4 split but this time it is a 5+3 split the reason is at the end of this blog.

So it was raining lightly as I left and headed to Coleton Fishacre which was the home of Rupert D'Oyle Carte  he was the son of Richard who is famed for bringing together W.S Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan.....  the chaps who wrote 14 comic Operetta's .... e.g Pirate's of Penzance  

Coleton is an Arts & Crafts building. It is a house I could move in tomorrow and it has a glorious garden.

Alas as I arrived at Coleton it was shrouded in FOG!!!! So my apologies for the rubbish pics.

Naughty duck!

Since there was no sign of it getting better I headed to the tea room. My scone... what to say the box it came from had 21/6 to 22/6 on it so my suspicion is it was made yesterday. If I'm wrong I apologise....

So there was no point hanging around so I headed off and just up the road the flipping fog cleared and I spotted sun!!

Berry Pomeroy castle is a Tudor mansion with the walls of a late 15th century castle. The Mansion being built by the Seymour family. It is a ruin now but must have been stunning in its day.

It also is reputed to be the most haunted castle in England.

And so I headed to the hamlet of Haccombe....

in 1810 apparently there were only two inhabited houses. The manor (which is now flats) and the parsonage.

It also contains

837 St Blaise, Haccombe

This is the last Devon church on my list and it is only open Wednesday afternoon.

According to the lady on duty Haccombe is one of two parishes that have an Archpriest. No I have never heard of the term before. Apparently the Archpriest has the right to sit beside the bishop wear a special costume and acknowledges no authority below that of the Archbishop of Canterbury. I am told the church had hoped the new lady vicar would give up the role (which has extra duties) but she hasn't. I  am pleased about that as I like quirky things.

One of the De Haccombe's (who built the medieval manor house - which is long gone) said that if he returned from a crusade he'd build a church....

This is a heart burial! Never seem one quite so attractive. The heart is here the body elsewhere.