THE white cliffs of Beer in east Devon, at the western end of the 95-mile long Jurassic Coast, shelter the vast sweep of Lyme Bay from the prevailing westerlies and create a natural sun trap for the picturesque fishing village.
They have also provided high-quality limestone and flint used locally to build solid family homes designed to withstand anything that wind and weather throws at them. Further afield, Beer stone, renowned for ease of carving, was used in the construction of the cathedrals of Exeter and Winchester, as well as that of Westminster Abbey and Windsor Castle.
For centuries, much of the land around Beer has been owned by the Clinton family, one of England’s oldest baronies, created in 1299, and still Devon’s biggest private landowner with 25,000 acres owned and managed across three separate estates. In the late 1800s, a successful collaboration between the Clinton Devon estates and the architect and artist David Carr, of the Carr’s biscuit family of Carlisle, saw the construction of a number of impressive Arts-and-Crafts houses in and around Beer, including the architect’s own house, built of the local stone and flint in 1890.
Many of the houses designed and built by Carr were bought as holiday homes by members of the gentry or captains of industry, who were drawn to the area by its mild climate and spectacular sea views. One of Carr’s finest creations was White Cliff, built-in 1897 on a wooded clifftop site overlooking Beer village with unbroken views across Lyme Bay.
Denne historien er fra February 16, 2022-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra February 16, 2022-utgaven av Country Life UK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
