8.  Street furniture

 

There are some good examples of street furniture in the village, including the red K6 phone box outside the Swan, wall post boxes of different periods, the old hand water pump, patterned drain covers, and old lettering. On the surface of the streets, there are several excellent examples of cobbled or other natural stone ground surfaces, and some old limestone kerbs. 

 

Sign posts are a muddle, and often inappropriately large.  An ugly railing in front of the seat by the slipway near the Green is carefully placed to block the view of the Haldon Hills of anybody who sits there.  The greatest blot is the proliferation of overhead wires, which seem to string the village together.

 

·        Good examples of street furniture should be preserved, including old iron railings.

 

·        Sign posts should be discreet, of natural material & simple lettering.

 

·        Some ugly tubular railings should be replaced.

 

·        Overhead wires should be buried, although some of the wooden telegraph poles could be preserved, so that they can continue their invaluable function as poster sites.  To this end, a dialogue should be opened with the relevant authorities.

 

·        Street lighting should be white, & directed downwards to avoid light pollution.

 

·        Use of tarmac should be restricted on splays, driveways & footpaths.

 

·        Cobble pavements & old limestone kerbstones should be retained.

 

·        The repair of roads and pathways after they have been dug up should be done with care and sensitivity. Cobble areas should be properly replaced, and tarmac fully reinstated, not patched.

 

·        The introduction of wheelie bins would not be suitable in Lympstone, as in many cases householders would have no option but to leave them outside their front doors.

 

 

 

9.  Boundaries

 

Two of the entries into Lympstone are lined by impressive boundary walls, the   castellated   stone wall  of   Courtlands,   and  the  unending  brick   wall, buttressed in places, of Nutwell Court.  These are the two building materials of the majority of Lympstone boundary walls.  Cob (the material of many of the houses) barely features.  Stone is particularly prominent, and it is mostly hard pre-carboniferous Devon limestone, in various shades from pink through grey to almost pure white.

 

The most important boundary of Lympstone, the cliffs facing the estuary, is of the most distinctive and pleasing of all Devon  stone, red Permian sandstone. Red sandstone has been used in the most striking man-made Lympstone boundary wall, that of Southerleigh garden facing onto Church Road. This wall, like several others in the village, has a topping of bricks on the stone base. In some cases, as in the high walls that line Sheppard’s Lane, the bricks have been added at a later date to increase the height, but this often creates a pleasing patchwork effect.

 

There are walls of brickwork dating from the 18th and 19th centuries.  The majority of these are in Flemish bond or Flemish wall bond.  The Nutwell Court wall is a mixture of the two, with some local variation.  There are one or two examples of English bond, for example the boundary wall to The Firs, facing Church Hill.  A piece of curved wall to The Manor House shows a charming example of the rarely-used header bond.

 

Coping is mainly created by header bricks laid on their edges on brick walls.  Bricks are sometimes used as coping on stone walls, and sometimes concrete.  More often, there is no coping.  There are no examples of Devon thatch or tile coping.

 

On the whole walls have usually been repaired with appropriate bricks or stonework, although there are examples of inappropriate mortar being used. The recent repair of the stone walling at the bottom of Strawberry Hill is a good example of the kind of restoration work that should be carried out to Lympstone boundaries.

 

Walls of natural material can also form a vertical garden, and the lichen and wild flowers, such as wall daisies, that grow on Lympstone walls are not only a delight in themselves, but evidence of the purity of Lympstone air.

 

Lympstone is fortunate in having escaped from much mass-produced wooden fencing as public boundaries.  Not many iron railings remain.  Surprisingly few boundary walls have been rendered.

 

There are one or two examples of Devon banking used as a boundary within the building line of the village.  One is in Underhill, and part of that has recently been carefully planted with appropriate hawthorn bushes.  For more Devon banks you have to look to Sowden, or to the other side of the A376, in Wotton Lane and Summer Lane. 

 

  • The boundary walls of Lympstone are a major feature of the village, and deserve careful protection.

 

·        Boundaries should be of hedge, stone or brick. Hedges should be of native plants, and in the Devon tradition.

 

·        Repairs should be sympathetic to the existing walls, & an effort should be made to match the colour of the existing brick or stone.

 

·        Mortar should not be raised, & should be of natural colour – ideally lime mortar should be used.

 

 

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