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FOOD & DRINK

FOOD

Devonshire cream tea, consisting of scones, jam and clotted cream, is said to have originated in Devon, though other counties have made similar claims. In Australia, New Zealand and other countries, it is known as ‘Devonshire tea’.

White pudding is known as Hog’s pudding in Devon and Cornwall.

Devonshire Quarrendon apples, an old deep crimson variety of fruit, were first recorded in about 1680. They are an unusual variety with a distinct strawberry flavour, regarded as best when eaten fresh from the tree. The best picking time is late August.

Devon produces over 30 different varieties of cheese, and the county’s largest cheese producer is the Taw Valley Creamery, supplied by a number of dairy farms. Among Devon cheeses are Curworthy, Sharpham, Tickler, Vulscombe, Devon Blue and Beenleigh Blue.

Devon cattle are rich red in colour, and sometimes known as Devon Ruby or Red Ruby. They are also sometimes known as North Devon, to avoid confusion with South Devon cattle. Sometimes called Orange Elephants, they are the largest of the British native breeds, and are thought to have descended from the large red cattle of Normandy, brought over at the time of the Norman Conquest. Although used mostly for beef, they are on occasion farmed for milking as well.

Riverford Farm, near Buckfastleigh, is the county’s most famous vegetable supplier. It began when founder Guy Watson started delivering locally to 30 friends in Devon, and grew to a national business delivering 47,000 boxes a week to homes around the United Kingdom from regional sister farms in Peterborough, Hampshire, Yorkshire and Cheshire. The group has 230 employees, 60,000 customers, an annual turnover of £33 million, and 70 per cent of their produce is grown in Great Britain. They won the Best Online Retailer 2010 award at the Observer Ethical Awards.

The Ambrosia company, Lifton, founded in 1917 as an infant nutrition company and now owned by Premier Foods, was the first in Britain to produce tinned rice pudding and custard. The rice pudding, made from local milk, was always used in Red Cross food parcels.

F.H. Jacka, the Barbican, Plymouth, is Britain’s oldest commercial bakery, founded by the Fownes family in 1596. During the blitz, local families came here to cook their dinners in the coal-fired ovens when power supplies were interrupted by bombing raids.

DRINK

The Plymouth Gin Distillery, sometimes known locally as the Blackfriars Distillery, Southside Street, has been producing gin since 1793. It was known as Coates & Co. until 2004, after which it was bought by the Swedish company V&S Group, and since 2008 it has been owned and distributed by the French company Pernod Ricard. It was a favourite drink of Winston Churchill, Alfred Hitchcock, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Ian Fleming, among others.

Devon is home to several breweries including:

Beer Engine, Newton St Cyres, Exeter

Blewitt’s Brewery, Kingsbridge

Branscombe Vale, Branscombe

Clearwater Brewery, Torrington

Dartmoor Brewery, Princetown – the highest in England

Jolly Boat Brewery, Bideford

Otter Brewery, Luppitt, near Honiton

Teignworthy Brewery, Newton Abbot

The Heavitree Brewery, based at Heavitree, Exeter, was established in about 1790. It was the last brewery in Exeter to cease production, continuing until 1970, and the buildings were demolished in 1980. The name survives as the owner of a chain of pubs in the West Country, and Heavitree Brewery PLC still exists as a quoted company with an address in Exeter. At the end of the nineteenth century there were fifteen breweries in the city – how times change!

Thomas Ford & Son’s Brewery was established at Tiverton in 1852. It was acquired by Starkey, Knight & Co., Bridgwater, in 1895, becoming Starkey, Knight & Ford, and the same company also took over the Taw Vale Brewery, Barnstaple, in 1897. In 1962 the company became part of Whitbread.

Beverage Brands, based in Torquay, the producers of WKD Original Vodka, cider and various soft drink brands, was founded in 1992. It claims to be ‘the No. 1 manufacturer of RTD (Ready To Drink) brands in Britain’.

PUBS WITH LITERARY CONNECTIONS

Burgh Island Hotel, Burgh Island – a favourite Devon stopping-place of Noel Coward, Winston Churchill, Amy Johnson and, so it is said, Edward VIII and Mrs Simpson, as well as Agatha Christie, who based the Jolly Roger Inn in Evil Under the Sun on it.

George Hotel, South Molton – R.D. Blackmore mentions it by name in Lorna Doone.

Journey’s End, Ringmore – R.C. Sherriff wrote much of his play of the same name, first performed in 1929, there.

Manor House Hotel, Moretonhampstead – Evelyn Waugh wrote much of Put Out More Flags while staying there.

Pack’o’Cards, Combe Martin – Marie Corelli stayed there, probably while writing The Mighty Atom, which was set in nearby Clovelly.

Rock Inn, Georgeham – a favourite haunt of Henry Williamson, who visited regularly and gathered a certain amount of material for his novels while chatting to friends and patrons. Drawings and photos of him are still displayed on the walls.

Royal Hotel, Bideford – Charles Kingsley stayed in this former merchant’s house in 1854, and probably wrote part of Westward Ho! (1855) there.

Royal Hotel, Dartmouth – disguised as the Royal George in Agatha Christie’s Ordeal by Innocence.

Royal Seven Stars, Totnes – Daniel Defoe alludes to it in his book, A Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain (1724) (see also pp. 46–7).

Three Crowns Inn, Chagford – Sidney Godolphin, one of the Cavalier Poets and staunch supporter of Charles I, was ambushed in the town by Parliamentarian forces, attacked and carried into the porch where he died of his wounds.

OTHER PUBS, HOTELS & RESTAURANTS WITH INTERESTING ASSOCIATIONS

The Stag Inn, Rackenford, near Tiverton, dates back to the end of the twelfth century and is believed to be Devon’s oldest remaining pub.

The Drewe Arms, Drewsteignton, was originally called the Druid Arms, until the Drewe family at Castle Drogo, who were having Castle Drogo built nearby, persuaded the brewery to change the name. It was taken over in 1919 by Ernest and Mabel Mudge, who had married in 1916. After Ernest died in 1951 his widow continued to run it herself, finally retiring on 4 October 1994, her ninety-ninth birthday, the oldest and the longest-serving landlady in Britain at the time. She died two years later.

The Royal Clarence Hotel, Exeter, built by William Mackworth Praed in 1769 as the Assembly Rooms, is recognised as the first hotel in England. An advertisement using the word ‘hotel’ (from the French for hostel) was published by the first landlord, the Frenchman Pierre Berlon, in September 1770. It was successively and unofficially known as the Cadogen Hotel, the Phillips Hotel, Thompsons, or simply ‘the Hotel’, until 1827, when the name was officially changed in honour of the Duchess of Clarence, later Queen Adelaide, who stayed there.

The China House, Plymouth, overlooking the Barbican and Sutton Harbour, was originally a warehouse built probably in the seventeenth century, believed to have been used for storage by William Cookworthy, ‘the father of English porcelain’. It has also been used as a gun wharf and a hospital for mariners.

The Exeter Inn, Modbury, was bought and owned in the 1980s by Graham Knight, bass guitarist with and founder member of pop-rock group Marmalade, who remained with them from their formation in the 1960s until 2010.

11 The Quay, Ilfracombe, is a quayside seafood restaurant and bar owned by controversial artist Damien Hirst. Despite what one of his previous artistic creations might lead one to expect, shark in formaldehyde has never been on the menu.

The Maltsters Arms, Tuckenhay, near Totnes, was bought in 1989 by Keith Floyd (1943–2009), the well-known TV chef. He renamed it Floyd’s Inn (Sometimes) and ran it for seven years until going bankrupt, apparently after a £36,000 cheque for a drinks bill bounced.

The Highwayman Inn, Sourton, built in about 1280, was given its present name in 1959 when John Buster Jones and his wife Rita brought the then run-down property and transformed it. It prides itself on its decor, which is said to rank among the most unusual of any pub in the county. The entrance has been built to resemble an old Launceston to Tavistock coach, and in the Locker bar, the main surface is a huge piece of wood brought from a Dartmoor bog. Many of the fittings have been created to look like the bows of an old wooden ship, with old timbers from vessels, notably the carved door of a whaling ship, Diana, which ran aground in the Humber in 1869.

The Valiant Soldier, Buckfastleigh, is ‘the pub where time was never called’. When the last landlady gave up her licence in 1965, it was left exactly as it was when it closed, with furniture and fittings left intact, and nothing packed up or thrown away. It stood untouched until 1997, when it was acquired by Teignbridge District Council, who now run it as a museum and heritage centre in association with the local community.

Veggie Perrin, Mayflower Street, Plymouth, a cruelty-free restaurant (‘no fish, prawns or even eggs’) took its name, almost, from the central character in the BBC television comedy series The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin. Leonard Rossiter, who had played the title role, was long since dead, and the opening ceremony was performed by his co-star, actor John Barron, who played the eccentric office boss CJ. The restaurant’s strapline, ‘I didn’t get where I am today by eating meat’, took its cue from CJ’s catchphrase in the series.

WHAT’S IN A (PUB) NAME?

Here are some local hostelries, not all still in existence, with interesting names and obvious, or not so obvious, reasons why and how they acquired them.

Blue Monkey, Plymouth

Previously known variously as Church Inn, St Bude Inn, St Budeaux Inn, and even Ye Old St Budeaux Inn, its name was changed in about 1939. Some say that it was because somebody had seen a monkey climbing on the roof, others that it was in honour of the boys who packed the guns with powder at the Battle of Trafalgar and were left with a blue residue on their hands. Towards the end of its days it developed a bad reputation, closed and was put on the market, but failed to sell. It was partly destroyed in an arson attack, and in 2007 the remains were demolished.

Brown Bear, Plymouth

Opened in 1774 as The Bear, adding Brown a few years later, as it had a large bear pit in the cellar used for fights before the practice was outlawed. It later changed its name briefly to the Chapel Street Inn but has since reverted.

Clarence Hotel, Plymouth

Named after the Duke of Clarence, who as Prince William had occasionally visited the city.

Elephant’s Nest, Horndon, near Mary Tavy

Formerly the New Inn (and who could resist changing from a dull name like that), it was changed in 1952 after the customers good-naturedly teased the overweight landlord, telling him he looked like an elephant on his nest. He evidently took it in good spirits.

Falstaff Inn, Plymouth

Named after the renowned bon viveur Sir John Falstaff of Shakespeare’s plays.

Grand Duchess, Plymouth; The Oldenburg, Paignton

Both named after Marie, Grand Duchess of Oldenburg, who had visited Devon on occasion.

Northmore Arms, Wonson, near Whiddon Dow

Another which could not wait to get rid of a boring New Inn appellation, altering it in the 1970s in hour of Mr Northmore, who had lived in Manor House at Wonson, until he was careless enough to lose his estate on the turn of a card. He gambled on his estate and lost, beaten by the ace of diamonds.

Pack Horse, South Brent

A former pack horse station on the old Plymouth to London turnpike road.

Palk Arms, Hennock

Named after the Palks who were landowners in the area.

Plume of Feathers, Princetown

Named after the three ostrich feathers from the arms of the Prince of Wales. Formerly called the Prince’s Arms, Princetown’s oldest building was originally erected to house the workmen engaged to build the town.