Exmouth historian: Reminiscing along Queen's Drive

Having enjoyed our tea or ice cream by the Pavilion, it is time to continue our walk along the historical seafront past the old Royal National Lifeboat Institution station which used to house the lifeboat.

When the lifeboat needed to go to sea, it was hauled across the road down to the sea by tractor.

Old lifeboat station, Exmouth (By Nilfanion, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=23797447)

This building is now the headquarters of the Exmouth Rowing Club. Opposite here is the lookout station for the National Coastwatch Institution (NCI).

We now see the new watersports centre and independent coffee bars and shops and Mickey's Restaurant owned by Michael Caines.

Opposite here too is the Amusement Arcade, once the clubhouse of the Exmouth Golf Club and then home to Exmouth Zoo.

Exmouth Cricket Ground in 2008 (cc-by-sa/2.0 - © Sarah Charlesworth - geograph.org.uk/p/1091496)

Just past here is the entrance to Exmouth Cricket Club which was established in 1843, and must surely boast of having one of the most beautiful cricket grounds anywhere. From the entrance you can gaze down The Maer, now a wildlife haven, and much changed in the last fifty years.

Beach huts and sand dunes

Walking along Queens Drive, it is hard to imagine the beach huts that once stood on the beach and were removed for the Second World War, when the beach was prepared against possible invasion.

Here also were large sand dunes, sadly now all removed, to give us an almost flat beach. Many children slid down these dunes having fun in the sunshine!

Exmouth sand dunes (cc-by-sa/2.0 - © Lewis Clarke - geograph.org.uk/p/2196012)

After the war the beach huts were re-sited all along what is now the dual carriageway.

These huts were much loved by families who owned them, including your historian's. A day spent by the sea often sitting on the outside of them admiring the view and the lack of cars throughout the 1950s and 1960s meant for an idyllic time.

Beach huts on Queen's Drive, Exmouth in 2016

(cc-by-sa/2.0 - © Stephen Craven - geograph.org.uk/p/5279149)

These huts were often personalised by their owners and although you were not allowed to stay overnight in them, to all intents and purposes they provided their owners with all the creature comforts of home.

Some even had names and your historian well remembers one called Arby Chut owned by his dentist, the Skidmore family. There was also the smell of the methylated spirits being used to heat up kettles on primitive one-ring stoves as picnics were devoured after perhaps a swim by Maer Rocks where shrimping and crabbing took place in all the rock pools.

The new RNLI Lifeboat Station, The Barn and Orcombe Point

Exmouth RNLI Lifeboat Station (Nub News/ Will Goddard)

We now approach the split in the road, where the RNLI have their state-of-the-art lifeboat station. The road opposite can take you up Foxholes Hill where there were gun emplacements in the war.

Here also was The Barn on the hill that tragically caught fire in 1905, and is pictured below before its resurrection. Once having climbed to the top the views from all along here out to sea are magnificent.

The Barn, 1897, Foxholes Hill (Mike Menhenitt)

As we walk along to Orcombe Point, and marvel at the rock strata, it shows us we can look to our left to the café and zig-zag path.

Here starts the most westerly point of the Jurassic Coast, a world heritage site.

Orcombe Point (Mike Menhenitt)

Above the point is the geoneedle, made from different rocks along the Jurassic Coast that stretches from Orcombe Point to Old Harry Rocks near Swanage in Dorset.

The geoneedle was commissioned from public artist, sculptor and designer Michael Fairfax to commemorate the opening of the Jurassic Way and was officially unveiled by HRH The Prince of Wales in 2002.

Geoneedle at Orcombe Point

(cc-by-sa/2.0 - © Richard Law - geograph.org.uk/p/2861003)

Returning to the beach, if the tide is out you can walk around the point and reach Rodney Bay and further on Start Point, which can echo to the sound of the military guns carrying out shooting practice.

Much further on, you reach Sandy Bay and eventually Budleigh Salterton.

Why not pay a visit to Exmouth Museum to find out more? You can also e-mail your historian at [email protected].

—————

Ed: This article is from Mike Menhenitt's Walking Through Exmouth History series. Use the links below to read previous articles:

Part One: The beginnings of Exmouth, from the Stone Age to the Bronze Age

Part Two: Exmouth in the Iron Age - and the arrival of the Celts

Part Three: Roman coins and Viking raids

Part Four: The impact of the Norman conquest, and how places in Exmouth got their names

Part Five: How Exmouth became a fashionable seaside resort in the 18th century

Part Six: How the docks brought prosperity to Exmouth - and then became the marina

Part Seven: The coming of the railway

Part Eight: Turnpikes, toll houses and inns in Exmouth