Exmouth

With its glorious coastal scenery and splendid two-mile-long beach, Exmouth was one of the earliest seaside resorts to be developed in Devon, “the Bath of the West, the resort of the tip-top of the gentry of the Kingdom”. Lady Byron and Lady Nelson came to stay and found lodgings in The Beacon, an elegant Georgian terrace overlooking the Madeira Walk and Esplanade. This early success suffered a setback when Brunel routed his Great Western line along the other side of the estuary (incidentally creating one of the most scenic railway journeys still possible in England), and it wasn’t until a branch line reached Exmouth in 1861 that business picked up again. The town isn’t just a popular resort. Exmouth Docks are still busy with coasters, and in summer a passenger ferry crosses the Exe to Starcross. There are also services to Dawlish Warren.

Exmouth’s major all-weather attraction is The World of Country Life, which offers an Adventure Exhibition Hall, a collection of vintage cars and rare steam engines, a Victorian street, safari train, pirate ship, pets centre and restaurant.

Occupying converted 18th-century stables and an adjoining cottage, Exmouth Museum provides fascinating insights into the town’s rich history and its strong maritime links. Exhibits include the reconstruction of a Victorian kitchen and a 1930s dining room.

While in Exmouth, you should make a point of visiting what has been described as “the most unusual house in Britain”. A La Ronde (National Trust) is a fairy-tale thatched house built in 1765 by the sisters Jane and Mary Parminter who modelled it on the church of San Vitale in Ravenna. Despite its name, the house is not in fact circular but has 16 sides with 20 rooms set around a 45-foot-high octagon. The sisters lived here in magnificent feminist seclusion, forbidding the presence of any male in their house or its 15 acres of grounds. What, therefore, no gentleman saw during the lifetime of the sisters, was the wonderfully decorated interior that the cousins created. These fabulous rooms, common in Regency times, are rare today. Due to their delicacy, the feather frieze and shell-encrusted gallery can be seen only via closed circuit TV. Throughout the house the vast collection of pieces that the ladies brought back from their extensive travels is on display.

The Parminter sisters also paid for the building in 1812 of nearby Point-in-View, a tiny Congregational chapel with adjacent almshouses for “four spinsters over fifty years of age and approved character”. The odd design includes a pyramidal roof with triangular windows, topped by a fanciful weathervane. Services are still held in the church.