Delabole

Have fun with an abstract is today’s abstract challenge on Blipfoto. Well, at the end of another busy day I was relaxing outside the tin shed admiring the beautiful hanging slates on my accommodation, wondering what the material was, and thinking it would be fun to take a pic of a section to use as todays photo. So here it is.

Chatting to my hosts, I now know that these are Delabole slates from Cornwall (Delabole is “probably the oldest working slate quarry in the world”, the tiles are not cheap). They are 1840’s and were rescued from an old chapel in Tavistock that was due to be demolished.

Very dicey weather here this morning, so I decided to head to Exeter to explore its cathedral and walk the Quayside and Exe Valley. The cathedral charges a £10 entrance fee, which is a lot and must preclude many families from visiting. I know in tourism hotspots, especially in the south where there are so many foreign visitors, they can get away with it. But it’s a shame. Extra - an abstract view of a small section of the tierceron vaulting. It is the longest uninterrupted medieval stone vaulted ceiling in the world. The 400 roof bosses are wonderful.

On the way back I visited Brentor (extra), an outlier from the rest of Dartmoor, and topped with the tiny church of St Michael de Rupe. Spectacular 360° views all around. Below it the remains of an old Iron Age hill fort. The rock here is not granite, like the rest of Dartmoor, but basalt.