Ilfracombe

Like Barnstaple, Ilfracombe takes its floral decorations very seriously – during the 1990s the town was a consistent winner of the Britain in Bloom Competition. Between June and October the town goes “blooming mad” with streets, parks and hotels awash with flowers. Ilfracombe also promotes itself as a Festival Town offering a wide variety of events. They include a Victorian Celebration in mid-June when local people don period costumes. A grand costume ball and a fireworks display all add to the fun. There’s a Fishing Festival in early August, a Carnival Procession later that month, a Birdman Competition, a Rescue Day and many more.

The Landmark Theatre is a striking building with what look like two gleaming white truncated cooling towers as its main feature. This multi-purpose arts centre has a 480-seat theatre, cinema screening facilities, a spacious display area and a café-bar with a sunny, sea-facing terrace. Next door to the Landmark Theatre, in Runnymede Gardens, is the Ilfracombe Museum, which opened in 1932 and has a variety of displays ranging from bats to Buddhas.

With a population of around 11,000, Ilfracombe is the largest seaside resort on the North Devon coast. Up until 1800, however, it was just a small fishing and market town relying entirely on the sea both for its living and as its principal means of communication. The boundaries of the old town are marked by a sheltered natural harbour to the north and, half-a-mile away to the south, a part-Norman parish church boasting one of the finest medieval waggon roofs in the West Country.

The entrance to Ilfracombe harbour is guarded by Lantern Hill, a steep-sided conical rock, which is crowned by the restored medieval Chapel of St Nicholas. For centuries, this highly conspicuous former fishermen’s chapel has doubled as a lighthouse, the light being placed in a lantern at the western end of the building. St Nicholas must surely be the only ecclesiastical building in the country to be managed by the local Rotary Club – it was they who raised the funds for its restoration. From the chapel’s hilltop setting there are superb views of Ilfracombe, its busy harbour and the craggy North Devon coastline.

Like so many west country resorts, Ilfracombe developed in response to the early 19th-century craze for sea bathing and sea water therapies. The Tunnel Baths, with their extravagant Doric facade, were opened in Bath Place in 1836, by which time a number of elegant residential terraces had been built on the hillside to the south of the old town.

Around the same time, two tunnels were bored through the cliff to reach rocky Tunnels Beach, which is still privately owned and for which a modest charge is made for access.

The arrival of a branch railway line from Barnstaple in 1874 brought an even larger influx of visitors to Ilfracombe. Much of the town’s architecture, which could best be described as “decorated Victorian vernacular”, dates from this period, the new streets spreading inland in steeply undulating rows. Around the same time the harbour was enlarged to cope with the paddle steamers bringing in tourists from Bristol and South Wales. Today, visitors can take advantage of regular sailings from that harbour to Lundy Island, as well as cruises along the spectacular Exmoor coast.

Standing beside the harbour is the Ilfracombe Aquarium, housed in the former lifeboat house. It contains an impressive collection of both freshwater and marine species in carefully re-created natural habitats. Worth a visit is the fun fish retail area here.

Chocaholics will surely seek out Walker’s Chocolate Emporium in the High Street, which offers an irresistible choice of confectionery handmade on the premises. There’s also a café selling hot chocolates and sweet snacks while upstairs is a chocolate museum.

For walkers, the South West Coast Path from Ilfracombe provides some spectacular scenery, whether going west to Capstone Point, or east to Hillsborough Hill.

Just to the east of Ilfracombe, at Hele Bay, The Old Corn Mill and Pottery is unique in North Devon. Dating back to the 16th century, the mill has been lovingly restored from near dereliction and is now producing 100% wholemeal stone-ground flour for sale. In Robin Gray’s pottery, you can watch him in action at the potter’s wheel and try your own skill in fashioning slippery clay into a more-or-less recognisable object. If you really want to keep the result, the pottery will fire and glaze it, and post it on to you.

Half a mile or so south of the mill, set in a secluded valley, Chambercombe Manor is an 11th-century mansion that was first recorded in the Domesday Book. Visitors have access to eight rooms displaying period furniture from Elizabethan to Victorian times, can peek into the claustrophobic Priest’s Hole, and test their sensitivity to the spectral presences reputed to inhabit the Haunted Room. The Coat of Arms bedroom was once occupied by Lady Jane Grey and it is her family’s arms that are displayed above the fireplace. Outside, the four acres of beautiful grounds contain wildfowl ponds, a bird sanctuary and an arboretum.