Travelling west out of Chard on the A30 it is not long
before you come upon the sign telling you that you are passing from Somerset into Devonshire. Drive on down through woodland until you
leave the trees behind and then enjoy the wonderful scenery unfolding around
you as the road meanders into the Yarty Valley and crosses the narrow bridge
over the river. Begin the climb up the
other side of the valley and enter deeper into the eastern reaches of the
Blackdowns and you will see the village of Yarcombe and its Norman church of
St. John the Baptist clinging to the hillside ahead.
Yarcombe huddles around a steep sharp bend on the A30 main
road 1.5 miles from the county border.
The centre of this small village is dominated by its church and historic
public house. Sadly, it may not have a
pub for much longer as the Yarcombe Inn, a Grade ll listed building, is closed
and up for sale at the moment, although locals have been campaigning to keep it
open and have even been raising funds to buy it. The picturesquely thatched pub was once a
coaching inn with parts of the building dating back to the seventeenth century.
It is said to be on the site of former
church buildings and may incorporate some remains from the Guest House of
Otterton Priory.
The village hall car park is just a few yards beyond an awkward
right turn off the A30 by the Yarcombe Inn.
It was a convenient place to the leave car while having a stroll
around.
The Church of St. John the Baptist was my first port of
call. I was able to take some photos of
the church against a clear blue sky before appreciating the views over the
valley from a nicely positioned bench in the crowded, but very tidily kept
churchyard.
I did not go inside the church so I will leave it to another
to describe. Writing of the church over
40 years ago, Ronald Webber in his The
Devon and Somerset Blackdowns (Robert Hale & Company, 1976) states:
“The church of St. John the Baptist, with its solid west
tower, is a fifteenth-century structure with a few earlier traces, but it was
badly restored in 1889-91 when the chancel was rebuilt. In the centre of the tiled floor are armorial
bearings granted to Sir Francis Drake by Queen Elizabeth I. Oak from Yarcombe used in the building of a
bell frame at Exeter Cathedral in the fourteenth century was brought back in
1910 to make the present pulpit which has linen fold panels from Buckfast Abbey
given by Lady Drake. The lectern is made
of the original pulpit. In the windows
of the north transept is some fifteenth-century glass, and the font is of
roughly the same period.”
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| The Church of St. John the Baptist in the village of Yarcombe, Devonshire. |
Apparently in 1581 Queen Elizabeth l gave the Yarcombe
Estate to the Earl of Leicester who then sold it to Sir Francis Drake for
£5,000.
A few steps then took me out onto the A30 where I took some
photos of the Yarcombe Inn. If you did
not know it was a pub you could easily not recognise it as such because the
large pub signs which used to be on its wall have gone.
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| The Yarcombe Inn, closed and for sale, stands in the shadow of the Church of St. John the Baptist. |
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| Villagers at Yarcombe in Devonshire are campaigning to save their pub. The signs on the A30 as you enter the village. |
I then crossed the A30 and walked up the footpath to an
orientation plinth with an accompanying stone bench. The views over the Yarty Valley and to the
hills on the horizon were a little hazy, but I did take some photos. The houses on this stretch of road must have
some of the finest inland vistas in Devonshire.
Another 100 paces uphill alongside the A30 allowed me to
look straight down on the church and its surroundings with the far side of the valley
beyond – a steep walk, but worth the effort.
It was then downhill all the way back to the car-park!
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| The village of Yarcombe in Devonshire. The tractor is driving up the A30. |
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| The view to the south along the Yarty Valley in Devonshire. The photo was taken from beside the A30 near the orientation plinth above the village of Yarcombe. |
