Three Gables, Cathedral Yard, Exeter, Devon

 

 

Cathedral yard is the street that runs along the north side of the cathedral, and this part of it is opposite the road, tucked into a corner known as Little Stile. This lovely Tudor terraced building is dated 1540 and was originally occupied by craftsmen who worked for the cathedral. Comprising three timber framed properties (3 to 5 consecutively) it's a Grade II Listed Building.

There's a bit of conflicting history - as there is with almost all of the buildings in and around Cathedral Close and Cathedral Yard. However, I'm mostly using information from the Listed Buildings register with a little bit added from other sources.

The photo above is from No 3, of which there's hardly any info at all, although the oriel windows above have been altered. The photos below are of No 4.

The fab oriel windows above No 4 are reproduction 17th Century. Remodelled by the Victorian stained glass artist Frederick Drake, who aquired the property in 1894, he also had the impressive Ham Stone window installed, seen below.

No 5 has an early to mid 19th Century shop front and the oriels above now contain Georgian sash windows. 

This is just a very short article for now. I'm currently working on a long one of Cathedral Close, which is choc-a-bloc with Mediaeval Grade I Listed buildings, but I wanted to post something fairly quickly as I've left it so long since I last published anything. I'm also writing about Cathedral Yard, including a potted version of this one, but I need to visit to take more photos of all the buildings first. I think Three gables really deserves a post of its own though, and I'll be adding more photos as soon as I have them. :) 

 

 

Video Page

 

 

Just a brief note to let everyone know that I've now finished and published a page with my videos, which is on the Nav Bar at the top of the home page. As well as the videos and brief descriptions of the contents, I've also added links to the blog articles for each one.

Enjoy! :)

Updates & Where I'm At!

As it's been a while since I posted anything, and I've only managed to add two articles so far this year, I thought I'd give an update of what's happening and what's in the pipeline. And to let you know that I'm still here! ;)

As I hadn't been out & about taking new photos for quite a while I finally got around to having a morning out in Beer, the village just westward along the coast from Seaton where I live, finishing the film with a lovely clapboard building in Seaton. That was last October and I was able to write the article about one of the Beer buildings (Sunny Nook) this year. I took a lot of photos of various buildings but knew I needed more so that's what I did near the end of April.

Then the day after that I went out in Seaton to finish my film on the local mini golf in Seafield Gardens, which has been remade to resemble a prehistoric setting - this being part of the World Heritage Jurassic Coast - and which I hadn't seen close to since the changes. I'll be adding that at some point.

The plan is to write an article about Fore Street in Beer, as it's absolutely choc-a-block with Arts & Crafts buildings, lovely old cottages and other fabulous buildings, and then do some separate posts about the most interesting ones. I finally finished scanning and post-editing all the photos I had. I think I need to go back again though as I've missed some out for background, which I didn't think I'd need at the time!

Meanwhile, I had a Google notification to say that my blog text is too small for mobiles - along with two other problems, which I can't readily fix. However, I made a start at changing the font size on each article, which will take forever as each paragraph has to be done separately. But, if anyone can tell me it's a lot easier to read that way then I'll continue to make the changes, or if there's a quicker way of doing it, which would be really useful.

I'm not out of the woods yet but I'm making a really concerted effort to do some things other than the necessary daily stuff, including getting back to writing my blog again. So, what happened? Unfortunately, I'm battling some horrible recurring bouts of depression, which I haven't had for a very long time, and can't seem to shake off.

It all started with some alterations to our balconies in the flats where I live. We'd had them done before, with new balustrades, but apparently they weren't fitted properly and not only had to be refitted but also the flooring needed new concrete and surfacing laid. The scaffolding went up in March and I removed my plants into the spare bedroom and onto thick plastic sheeting. This was after several days of moving stuff around in there to make a large enough space for 24 pots and planters near the windows.

Each block was supposed to be scaffolded, work done, then the scaffolding removed so that there would be minimal disruption. However, since Brexit there has been a difficulty in obtaining building supplies and long delivery times so the construction workers had to continue with almost all of five blocks before finishing off the earlier ones.

During the first few weeks it rained almost continually - which also interrupted the work done several times - and the scaffolding made it a lot darker indoors. Also, I was used to going out on my balcony daily, especially first thing in the early morning, to enjoy seeing the weather, birds, trees and the odd squirrel or fox, etc, but it was shut off and couldn't be accessed. I realised after a while that I was getting S.A.D (Seasonal Affected Disorder) because of the lack of light, so I started going out for longer walks more often to combat it, which helped, especially when the weather improved with Spring sunshine.

I lost some of my plants as the perennials grew too fast and leggy indoors, then keeled over and died. I managed to save some, especially the most important ones, and with lots of care they revived when back out on the balcony, which I finally had back again after eleven weeks!

 

I was going to put some of the new building photos on this post as a taster  but I decided to add some of last year's balcony photos instead. These are ones taken with my little FugiFilm digi camera by the way, so they're a bit different to my usual 35mm ones and I haven't added borders on these. My garden will probably take another year or so to get back to something similar, but I've made a start with my surviving plants, new seeds are growing and I bought some trays of new flowers to plant out along with tomato and runner bean plants, the latter of which are already racing up their cane wigwam.

However, the depression and lack of motivation keeps coming back! Probably the aftermath of stress, exhaustion and needing time to recover. I desperately need a holiday, which apart from three weekends away I haven't had a proper one since 1991! Not to worry; I'll be okay anon.

So there we have it. I really hope I can kick start myself off by writing this, but I can't guarantee it so please be patient with me. Meanwhile, I do have several articles partially written, a new page of my videos to finish and other ideas in the background, so I'll do my best. And, as I've just taken some photos of my balcony today I'll add those below. I haven't put up the windbreak yet and there are two trays of flowers and some tomato plants to plant out but it's getting there. :)

Sorry about the 'woe is me' chat but it was quite surprisingly therapeutic. Hopefully, I'll have some much more interesting articles coming soon and please don't forget to let me know if there's an appreciable difference in the text on the latest posts and if you think it's better either with or without the larger font.

Cheers, Eileen. :)