Honiton

Honiton is the ‘capital’ of east Devon, a delightful little town in the valley of the River Otter and the ‘gateway to the far southwest’. It was once a major stopping place on the Fosse Way, the great Roman road that struck diagonally across England from Lincoln to Exeter. Honiton’s position on the main traffic artery to Devon and Cornwall brought it considerable prosperity, and its broad, ribbon-like High Street, almost two miles long, testifies to the town’s busy past. By the 1960s, this ‘busyness’ had deteriorated into appalling traffic congestion during the holiday season. Fortunately, the construction of a by-pass in the 1970s allowed Honiton to resume its true character as an attractive market town with a street market held on the High Street every Tuesday and Saturday.

Surrounded by sheep pastures, Honiton was the first town in Devon to manufacture serge cloth, but the town became much better known for a more delicate material, Honiton lace. Lace-making was introduced to east Devon by Flemish immigrants who arrived here during the early years of the reign of Elizabeth I. It wasn’t long before those who could afford this costly new material were displaying it lavishly as a signal of their wealth and status. By the end of the 17th century, people were engaged in the lace-making industry, most of them working from their own homes making fine ‘bone’ lace by hand. Children as young as five were sent to ‘lace schools’ where they received a rudimentary education in the three Rs of Reading, (W)Riting, and (A)Rithmetic, and a far more intensive instruction in the skills of lace-making. Almost wiped out by the arrival of machine-made lace in the late 1700s, the industry was given a new lease of life when Queen Victoria insisted upon Honiton lace for her wedding dress and created a new fashion for lace that persisted throughout the 19th century.

The traditional material is still made on a small scale in the town and can be found on sale in local shops, and on display in Allhallows Museum (see panel above). This part 15th-century building served as a school for some 300 years, but is now an interesting local museum housing a unique collection of traditional lace and also, during the season, giving daily demonstrations of lace making. Other exhibits include the bones and tusks of the Honiton Hippos, which have been dated back some 100,000 years.

Allhallows Schoolroom was one of the few old buildings to survive a series of devastating fires in the mid 1700s. However, that wholesale destruction had the fortunate result that the new buildings were gracious Georgian residences and Honiton still retains the pleasant, unhurried atmosphere of a prosperous 18th-century coaching town.

Another building that escaped the flames unscathed was Marwood House (private) in the High Street. It was built in 1619 by the second son of Thomas Marwood, one of Queen Elizabeth’s many physicians. Thomas achieved great celebrity when he managed to cure the Earl of Essex after all others had failed. (He received his Devonshire estate as a reward.) Thomas was equally successful in preserving his own health, living to the extraordinary age of 105.

Honiton boasts the only public art gallery in East Devon. The Thelma Hulbert Gallery occupies Elmfield House, an attractive Grade II listed late Georgian/early-Victorian town house that was the home and studio of the artist Thelma Hulbert (1913-1995). Now owned by East Devon District Council, the gallery has strong links with the Hayward Gallery in London, which enables it to exhibit works by artists such as David Hockney, Andy Warhol and Roy Lichenstein.

Some buildings on the outskirts of the town are worth a mention. St Margaret’s Hospital, to the west, was founded in the middle ages as a refuge for lepers who were denied entry to the town itself. Later, in the 16th century, this attractive thatched building was reconstructed as an almshouse. To the east, on Axminster Road, an early 19th-century toll house known as Copper Castle can be seen. The castellated, pink-washed building still retains its original iron toll gates. And just a little further east, on Honiton Hill, stands the massive folly of the Bishop’s Tower, erected in 1843 next to his house by Bishop Edward Copplestone, apparently to enable him to see his diocese of Llandaff across the Bristol Channel.

On the northern edge of Honiton rises the National Trust-owned Dumpdon Hill, an 850 feet high steep-sided outcrop which is crowned by a sizeable late-Iron-Age fort. Both the walk to the summit and the views over the Otter Valley are breathtaking.