Ottery St Mary

Ottery St Mary
Population
OS grid reference	SY098955
District	East Devon
Shire county	Devon
Region	South West
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	OTTERY ST MARY
Postcode district	EX11
Dialling code	01404
Police	Devon and Cornwall
Fire	Devon and Somerset
Ambulance	South Western
UK Parliament	East Devon

Ottery St Mary, known locally as just "Ottery" (pronounced /ɒtərɪ/ or, more colloquially, /ɒtrɪ/), is a town in the East Devon district of Devon, England, on the River Otter, about ten miles east of Exeter on the B3174. It is part of a large civil parish of the same name, which also covers the villages of West Hill, Metcombe, Fairmile, Alfington, Tipton St John and Wiggaton.

The town was the birthplace of the Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, where his father, the Reverend John Coleridge, was a well respected vicar. The noted diplomat Sir Ernest Satow spent his retirement (1906–29) here at a house called Beaumont, which still stands. Satow was buried in the churchyard; there is a commemorative plaque to him in the church.

Ottery's notable buildings include the Tumbling Weir and Ottery St Mary church. The town is the site of The King's School, now a comprehensive school, a former grammar school founded in 1545 by Henry VIII.

The Tar Barrels

Tar Barrels, 5 November 2005

The town typically stages annual events around Guy Fawkes Night when, in a tradition dating from the 17th century, barrels soaked in tar are set alight and carried aloft through parts of the town by residents.

The festivities begin in the early evening with children's, youths' and women's events, culminating in the men's event when a total of seventeen barrels are lit outside each of the four public houses in the town. (Originally there were 12 public houses in the town). The barrels, increasing in size up to 30kg, are carried through the town centre, often packed with onlookers, in an exhilarating and risky spectacle. Only those born in the town, or who have lived there for most of their lives, may carry a barrel. Generations of the same family have been known to compete across the years and it is thought that the event may have originated as a means of warding off evil spirits, similar to other British fire festivals, around the time of Halloween. In recent years the event has been jeopardised by the need for increasing public liability insurance cover. Nevertheless the event continues and the town's population of 7,000 increases at the event to well over 10,000. During the event all roads in and out of Ottery St Mary are closed for safety reasons with diversions in place.

It has been suggested that the tradition may have started when the Black Death entered the town. In those days cannons (ten pipe strikers using gunpowder) were said to have been employed to scare the rats carrying the plague out of the houses and into the street. Burning barrels were then rolled through the street to kill the rats before being picked up and moved to the next street. The dead rats were gathered and thrown on a big bonfire at the end of the town.

On 30 October 2008 the annual event was threatened by a serious hailstorm which hit East Devon shortly after midnight. The storm led to serious flooding in the town, caused mainly by storm drains becoming clogged with hailstones. Roads became blocked and the Coastguard service was required to airlift some people to safety. The flooding also caused problems on the Millennium Green, where the annual bonfire and fairground were being constructed in preparation for the November 5th celebrations. One of the owners of the fairground said that the builders working there were "lucky to be alive". The clear-up operation was entirely successful, howewer, and both the carnival procession and the Tar Barrels and bonfire night celebrations went ahead as planned.

Pixie Day

Pixie Day is another old tradition which takes place in the town annually on a Saturday in June. The day commemorates an ancient legend of infamous "pixies" being banished from the town, where they caused havoc, to local caves known as the "Pixie's Parlour".

The Pixie Day legend is as follows: Many hundreds of years ago in the early days of christianity, the people of the land of East Devon, used to believe in Pixies and spirits. But Bishop Grandisson decide to build a church in Otteri and in doing so commissioned a set of bells to be cast in iron in the bells works in Wales. The Bishop so concerned about the bells getting destroyed organised an escort of Monks to bring the bells to Otteri. On hearing of this the Pixies were very concerned because the knew that once the bells were installed in the Church it would spell the death knell of their rule over the land. So they got together and cast a spell over the monks and redirected the monks from the road down Chineway, towards the road leading them to the cliffs overlooking the sea at Sidmouth. Just as the monks were about to fall over the cliff, one of the monks hit his big toe on a rock and said "god bless my soul" and immediately the spell was broken. The bells were then brought to Otteri (Ottery St Mary) and installed in the church. However the Pixies spell was not quite broken, because each year as legend has it on a day in June, the Pixies come out and capture the town's bell ringers (and some years the parish council) and imprison them in Pixies parlour to be rescued by the Vicar of Ottery St Mary. This legend is re-enacted each year by the cub and brownie groups of Ottery St Mary with a specially constructed Pixies Parlour in the Town Square. The original Pixies Parlour (a cave in sandstone) can be found along the banks of the River Otter about 1 mile south of the Otter road bridge in Ottery St Mary on the left hand bank (looking south).

Cadhay Manor

One mile north-west of the town is the Elizabethan Manor House of Cadhay, the residents of which have had a long association with the church.The house has been occupied by the William-Powlett family since the 1920's and has recently been inherited by a furniture maker nephew, Rupert Thistlethwayte. He has restored it to its previous splendour whilst introducing modern comforts such as heating and additional bathrooms, as well as contemporary furniture of his own to complement the antique furniture. Sir Simon Jenkins in his book of England Thousand Best Homes said “The courtyard ….. with statues of Henry VIII and his three monarch offspring, Edward, Mary and Elizabeth ….. is one of the treasures of Devon.“ Cadhay was built by John Haydon in 1550 on the site of an earlier house. His nephew Robert built a long gallery, a feature of late 16th century housebuilding, closing in the south side of the house to form a courtyard. The four statues of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary and Elizabeth which stand over the doors in the courtyard were carved in 1617. By 1737 the house was in a poor state of repair and the new owner, Peere Williams, restored the house in the style of that period. He plastered up most of the Tudor hearths and panelled a number of the rooms. He inserted a lower ceiling in the great hall under the magnificent oak-timbered roof to form the current dining room and roof chamber.The house was at times divided into two in the 18th and 19th centuries and fell into a bad state of repair. It was bought by Dampier Whetham in 1910 who uncovered the old Tudor hearths and put the house into sound structural condition. He let the house to the William-Powletts in the 1920's and then who bought the property in 1935, and members of their family have occupied it since.

Old Ottregians Society

One Sunday afternoon in 1898 six young men from Ottery St Mary, who were then living in London, met on the steps of St Paul's Cathedral, and resolved to form a Society to promote good fellowship among Ottery people wherever they may be. And so was founded the Old Ottregians Society, which took as its motto 'Floreat Ottregia ('May Ottery Flourish')" The Old Ottregians society still exists today (2008).

Another tradition in Ottery St Mary still continued today is the daily playing of the Old Ottery song. At midday each day the Church of Ottery St Mary plays the Old Ottery song after the midday peal of the church bells. Tradition has it that the funerals of Old Ottregians always take place at 12.00 midday, with the funeral service commencing immediately following the playing of the Old Ottery song: The words are: Sweet-breathing kine, the old gray Church, The curfew tolling slow,The glory of the Western Sky, The warm red earth below. O! Ottery dear! O! Ottery fair! My heart goes out to thee, Thou art myhome, wher'er I roam, The West! The West for me!

Great Fire of Ottery St Mary

On May 25, 1866, a great fire occurred in Ottery St Mary. The fire started about noon and the raged through the homes and shops of about a quarter of the town, reducing everything to ashes. The fire started on Jesu Street where the charity schools formerly stood. At first some people believed that the fire had been started by children playing with matches, but subsequent investigation has now proved this to be incorrect. It appears that the fire was started by a woman burning rubbish and papers in her cottage fireplace on Thursday. The fire smoldered and eventually burned through the wall to the school next door. It was eventually discovered at the top of the staircase in the schoolroom, near the cottage chimney around noon on Friday. It then spread very rapidly. Within hours one hundred houses had been destroyed, and 500 people rendered homeless - 10% of the population. A great part of the town extending westwards from the school to the silk factory in Mill Street was reduced to a heap of smouldering ruins.

Ottery St Mary Air Crash

One summer evening in July 1980 a catastrophic disaster was narrowly averted when an aircraft on approach to Exeter Airport crash-landed just on the outskirts of the town, in a field where there now stands the cricket club. The aircraft, an Alidair Vickers Viscount turboprop, flying 62 holidaymakers home from Santander, Spain to Exeter was eleven miles short of the runway over a wooded area on East Hill, just before the town, when it ran out of fuel and all four engines stopped.

Fortunately, the pilot knew the area and was able to bank left and glide over the town's southern edge and make a wheels-up crash-landing in a field. The aircraft was put down at 19.53 hrs, in daylight, near St Saviours' Bridge, in a small grassy valley studded with trees. The aircraft, which was 27 years old, was written off in the crash.[1]. The only casualties were two sheep.

The Air Accident Investigation Branch later concluded that the accident had been primarily caused by the crew's erroneous belief that there was sufficient fuel on board to complete the flight. The aircraft's unreliable fuel gauges, the company's pilots' method of establishing total fuel quantity and the imprecise company instructions regarding the use of dipsticks, however, were also considered to be major contributory factors. Meter indications on the refuelling vehicle at Santander, which could not have accurately reflected the quantity of fuel delivered, were also considered to have been a probable contributory factor.

The accident investigation report concluded, however, that the aircraft commander's handling of the emergency once the aircraft's four engines stopped had been skilful and assured. Had he not acted in the way he did there could have been a considerable loss of life both for aircraft passengers and for residents of the town. One of the propellors from the aircraft was later donated by the airline to the town to be auctioned for charity.

Today the town still lies under the flightpath for Exeter Airport. Aircraft regularly pass overhead, mostly Bombardier Dash-8 Q400 Turboprops operated by the UK airline FlyBe, or the occasional Embraer E-195. There are about 20 such landings a day.

Kings School Ottery St Mary

The King's School is an 11-18 comprehensive school with just over 1000 students and 100 staff in Ottery St Mary, Devon, England. In 1335 Bishop John de Grandisson bought the manor of Ottery St Mary from the Dean and Chapter of Rouen who had owned it since 1061. He obtained a royal licence from Edward III to found his College of Secular Canons and established a choir school in Ottery St Mary in 1335 for eight boys and a Master of Grammar. The school did not start very promisingly in 1337 with the members of the choir-school being accused of "dissolute and insolent behaviour in the parish". Flogging was the order of the day, Bishop Grandisson being something of a disciplinarian, but as this did not work the boys were heavily fined for every day's absence from the choir. For over two hundred years the canons carried out Bishop Grandisson's instructions and the choir school boys were educated.

During these two hundred years the English long-bowmen fought and won the battles of Crecy (1346) and Agincourt (1415), parts of England were ravaged by the Wars of the Roses (1455-1485) and the Welshman Henry Tudor restored some peace and order before passing the throne to his son Henry VIII. Eventually the Reformation reached the College and in 1545 it was dissolved.

However upon some whim or persuasion Henry VIII was prompted to establish a free grammar school in Ottery St Mary.- hence "The King's School" and their coat of arms became the Lion and Wyvern.. The site occupied by the school today on the outskirts of Ottery St Mary dates to 1912. It became a comprehensive school in 1982.

The school is a government endowed Sports College with access to facilities also shared by the public - namely the Colin Tooze Sports Centre.

Faith K Jarrett became the headteacher in 2004, succeeding Roger A Featherstone.

The King's School was designated as a Specialist Sports College in the summer of 2002. Facilities for PE and sport at King's were already very good but the status as a Sports College has enabled the school to develop these even further. In partnership with East Devon District Council, a purpose built Dance Studio with state of the art sound and lighting systems was completed in 2003.

The Sports facilities also include a floodlight all weather astro turf Hockey & Football pitch

From 1900 the key dates in the school were:

• 1900 - 28 boys – Headteacher Mr Frank Wyatt of Dawlish.
• 1906 - Two classrooms – full forms!
• 1907 - Scheme to transfer the school to a new building and convert it to a co-educational grammar school.
• 1909-ish - Current site bought for £557 16s 3d., from Exeter Episcopal Charities.
• 1911 - Contract for new school – W J Granger of Whimple – for £6275.
• 1912 - 23 January 1912 – new school opened. The old school site of The Priory was let for £40 – eventually became the Police Station.
• 1920 - School’s first girl graduate – E Joyce Seward.
• 1921 - 285 pupils – mainly fee paying, with some free places.
• 1924 - James Johnson of Melton Mowbray succeeded Mr Wyatt as Headteacher.
• 1927 - Only 99 boys and 44 girls in attendance.
• 1934 - Nine boys went on a school cruise to Norway and Denmark.
• 1935 - Electric lights replaced gas.
• 1937 - New cricket pavillion.
• 1939 - 86 evacuees came to the school. Trenches were dug to accommodate the whole school.
• 1945 - Incident with local farmer over drainage problems. £20 settled the issue!
• 1946 - Mr. Crowther becomes Headteacher for four vigorous years.
• 1947 - New dining rooms – Miss Pollard – Cook-Supervisor.
• 1950 - Mr. Sydney Andrew becomes Headteacher.
• 1953 - New Library/Art Block – girls playground asphalted.
• 1955-56 - New Chemistry/Biology block.
• 1958 - Mains water. Entry of 75 to First Year. The Sixth Form was 40.
• 1963 - New Hall, Library, Changing Rooms, new Physics Laboratory.
• 1966 - Swimming Pool built.
• 1972 - Dr. M E Denning appointed Headteacher.
• 1976 - New Craft Block built.
• 1982 - Drama, Art, Music and Science provision increased. School intake became non-selective.
• 1988 - Mr. Larry Watkins appointed Headteacher.
• 1989 - Mr. Barry Teare appointed Headteacher.
• 1996 - New teaching block for Geography, History, RE and Foreign Languages.
• 1997 - Mr. Roger Fetherston appointed Headteacher.
• 2001 - New Dining Hall added to the Humanities & Language Block/Reception Area greatly expanded.
• 2002 - Sport College Status achieved.
• 2003 - New Teaching Rooms for Math & English and a New Dance Studio added to the Colin Tooze Sports Centre.
• 2004 - Miss Faith Jarrett appointed as Headteacher. The school now has just over 1070 students.

Interesting Facts

• An inhabitant of Ottery St Mary is an "Ottregian".
• There is a hymn tune called "Ottery St Mary" by Henry Ley (1887–1962).
• J. K. Rowling placed the Weasley family in the Harry Potter series in the fictional village of 'Ottery St Catchpole', which some believe is in allusion to Ottery St Mary. (See Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows)
• Thackeray also locates some of "Pendennis" in Ottery St. Mary.
• Ottery St Mary Parish Registers date back to 1601, and these are held in the Devon Record Office

Church

The church viewed from north-east

The parish church of Ottery St Mary has been referred to as a miniature Exeter Cathedral and is renowned for its painted roof and fan vaulted aisle.

The south transept (bell tower) houses the Astronomical Clock, one of the oldest surviving mechanical clocks in the country. It is commonly attributed to Bishop John de Grandisson, who was Bishop of Exeter (1327–69) and adheres to Ptolemaic cosmology with the Earth at the centre of the solar system.

St Mary's contains 10 misericords dating from the building of the church in 1350, five showing the arms of Bishop John de Grandisson. The church interior also has two medieval carved stone green men.

A small stone plaque commemorating poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge can be found in the south churchyard wall.

References

Whitham, J. (1984). Ottery St Mary Camelot Press. ISBN 0 85033 526 4.

External links

• Ottery St Mary Tourist Information Centre
• Ottery St Mary Herald
• Genuki
• EastDevon.net - Ottery St Mary
• Template:Dmoz
• Tar Barrels
• Ottery St Mary Parish Church
• Ottery St Mary Football Club
• Ottery St Mary Cricket Club
• Elizabethan Manor House
• Wanabehuman on Ottery St Mary Tar Barrels Festival

• Lundy, Darryl. "Place Index - Ottery St Mary". thePeerage.com.
• Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
• A photo album and description of the misericords at Ottery St Mary

Video clips

• Video of the tar barrels festival