Colyton Church

Colyton Church serves the village of the same name and we really only visited because it is at the other end of the Seaton Tramway but it turned out to be a pretty impressive place and is worth making the effort to see. As is always the case we did not visit for any religeous reasons - if you do that is fine but we just admired what we saw and took in the historical aspects. The church has its origins in the mid to late 12th century and has been enlarged more than once since. It has a nice lantern tower, some impressive windows and some equally impressive monuments. In its heyday it benefitted from the patronage of some wealthy locals who made money as wool merchants which helps explain the relative granduer of a church in a small village. Even a fire a the beginning of the 20th century was overcome as insurance covered most of the damage and and a fund raiser succeeded in raising money to keep the fabric of the church at an impressive level. Here are a few images of what we saw.

Seaton Tramway

Seaton Tramway opened in 1970 although its routes start with Eastbourne Tramway which had operated successfully for 15 years until forced to close in 1969 and then found a new home in Seaton. The 2'9" gauge tramway runs 3 miles from Seaton to Colyton and uses the route of the former branch line that closed in 1966 following the Beeching review. The line has opened to its current length in stages with the terminus at Colyton becoming operational in 1980. A bridge that used to take the brancj line further north to Seaton junction has been removed.

We took a trip on the tramway over the weekend and there appeared to be 4 of the tramway's 13 trams in operation. The line runs through a wetlands nature reserve and has another stop at Colyford terminus and you can get on and off at the stops whenever you wish in the knowledge that the next tram will be along in 20 minutes. It made for a good day out.

Brookwood Military Cemetary

Brookwood in Surrey is a Commonwealth War Graves site with sections covering several nations and most branches of the military. Many of the graves and other memorials relate to WWI but there are many inter war graves as well as many graves frim WWII, especially RAF. We took a small diversion on the way to Devon to pay our respects.

Norham Castle

Norham Castle is in Northumberland close to the Scottish border. The Keep dates to the 12th century. The castle was often attacked by the Scots with at least 13 sieges, one by Robert the Bruce lasting for almost a year. It did eventually fall to James IV in 1513 although he was subsequently defeated at Flodden Field. The castle was rebuilt in the 16th century but is a ruin again now and parts are currently closed for restoration works but it is still worth a visit, especially as it is free!