Devon in January
Another trip we made over the Christmas break was down to Devon (South West England). Not sure where to go or what to do, we ended up in Exeter. Exeter is a neat medieval town with some lovely old buildings. Sadly not all survived the bombing during the second world war. Something that did survive (and was used as air raid shelters) are the medieval tunnel system. I went down into the tunnels which were originally used to run lead water pipes through to provide the city with running water from springs outside the city walls. A lot of these tunnels still exist as they are quite far underground (about 7 meters). So while Kate went shopping, I went underground! The idea of the tunnels was that if a pipe needed fixing after a burst, the then council didn’t have to pay people to dig up their land to access it, they just sent some guys into the tunnels. Amazing insight… These tunnels (and the water pipe system) was used up until about 1900 when some bright engineer ruined the system by digging out a cutting for the railway which resulted in the spring being re-diverted into a river and the water system drying up… (do engineers ever make mistakes these days??)
Photos here!
