Ottery St Mary
Ottery St Mary, known as "Ottery", is a town and civil parish in the East Devon district of Devon, England, on the River Otter, about east of Exeter on the B3174. At the 2001 census, the parish, which includes the villages of Metcombe, Fairmile, Alfington, Tipton St John, Wiggaton, and West Hill, had a population of 7,692. The population of the urban area alone at the 2011 census was 4,898. In 2021 the parish had a population of 7,986.
There are two electoral wards in Ottery. The total population of both wards, including the adjacent civil parish of Aylesbeare, at the 2011 census was 9,022.
Ottery is home to a number of independent, local businesses which are situated on Mill Street, Silver Street and Yonder Street. An area known as 'The Square' is at the centre of the town. Ottery is a hub for local trade providing goods and services for residents and visitors alike.
Etymology
The name Ottery is first attested in the Domesday Book of 1086, where it appears as 'Otri' and 'Otrei'. 'Oteri Sancte Marie' is first mentioned in 1242. The town takes its name from the River Otter on which it stands. The town belonged to the church of St Mary in Rouen in 1086, hence 'St Mary'.Within the parish lies Chettisholt, noted as one of the fairly small number of Common Brittonic place-names surviving in England. The first element of this name is the Brittonic word which survives in modern Welsh as coed ; the last is the Old English word holt, also meaning "wood", added to the name when its original meaning had been lost due to the dominant language of the area switching from Brittonic to Old English.
History
Archaeological excavations in 2014, in advance of a housing development at Island Farm, uncovered a medieval longhouse dating to AD.1250–1350.Ottery's notable buildings include the Tumbling Weir and St Mary's church. The town is the site of The King's School, formerly a grammar school but now a comprehensive school, founded in 1545 by Henry VIII, and of Ottery St Mary Primary School. The Old Town Hall now accommodates the local heritage museum.
The Chanter's House is a Grade II listed building. The Listing summary states: "Dates from the days of the College but little trace of antiquity remains, mainly enclosed by large brick outer additions by Butterfield including a 3rd storey, extending also above the C18... The C17 centre is the former Heath's Court..." It dates from the 17th century, incorporating parts of the former Precentor's house, known as Heath's Court. In 1645, Oliver Cromwell held a convention in the house's dining room, and Thomas Fairfax stayed at the house from October to December in that year. The building served as the headmaster's lodging for the King's School. Samuel Taylor Coleridge grew up here after his father, Rev. John Coleridge, moved there after being appointed headmaster and vicar of St Mary's Church in 1769. The property remained in the Coleridge family until 2006, when it was sold to Max Norris who completed a major renovation over five years.
A report in June 2020 describes The Chanter's House as having ten bedrooms, 11 bathrooms and a library with 22,000 books, purchased with the property in 2006. The grounds include a "walled gardens, stables, tennis court, a Victorian palm house and an aviary, as well as over 21 acres of gardens, woodland and streams... a lodge and a coach house." A news item states that the library includes "diaries, notes and collections of poems, including The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" by
Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
Church
The parish church of St Mary's has been referred to as "a miniature Exeter Cathedral". Like the cathedral it is cruciform in plan, with transepts formed by towers.Nikolaus Pevsner described the building as "lying large and low like a tired beast". It is long, and the towers are high. It was consecrated in 1260, at which time the manor and patronage of the church belonged to Rouen Cathedral, as it had from before the Norman invasion. Pevsner assumed that the tower-transepts and the outer walls of the chancel date back to 1260, and that the towers were built in imitation of those at Exeter.
In 1335 John Grandisson,, Bishop of Exeter, bought the manor and advowson from Rouen, and two years later converted the church into a collegiate foundation with forty members. He rebuilt much of the church, and the present nave, chancel, aisles and Lady chapel date from this time. The nave is of five bays, and the chancel, unusually long in proportion, is of six, with vestry chapels to the north and south.
The church is noted for its painted ceiling and early 16th-century fan vaulted aisle, the Dorset Aisle, designed and commissioned by Cecily Bonville, 7th Baroness Harington, whose first husband was Thomas Grey, 1st Marquess of Dorset.
The building was restored in 1850 by architect William Butterfield. His alterations included lowering the floor level of the transepts, crossing and western part of the chancel to that of the nave, and making the east end, designed for the needs of the collegiate foundation, more suitable for parochial use.
The church houses the Ottery St Mary Astronomical Clock, one of the oldest surviving mechanical clocks in the country. It is generally attributed to Bishop Grandisson and follows Ptolemaic cosmology placing the Earth at the centre of the Solar System.
The church has ten 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 portrayals of the Green Man. There is a small stone plaque commemorating the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who was born here on 21 October 1772, in the south churchyard wall. Other interesting features include the tombs of Otho de Grandisson and his wife, the altar screen, sedilia, and a wooden eagle given by Bishop Grandisson.
Ottery St Mary parish registers, which begin in 1601, are held in the Devon Record Office.
This is a Grade I listed building, one of 107 Listed sites in the area. The summary provides this information: "Consecrated by Bishop Bronescombe in 1260. Altered and added to by Bishop Grandison circa 1330. Mainly Early English... 2 towers above transepts.... The interior was restored drastically mid C19 by Butterfield and others". The work in the 1300s included "rebuilding of the nave, and addition of the Lady Chapel at the east end and two chantry chapels either side of the chancel" according to a reliable source. Other renovations were completed circa 1520: "principally expansion of the north nave aisle, complete with elaborate, fan-vaulted ceiling and pendant bosses".
Schools
The town's primary schools are West Hill Primary School which was established in 1876 and now has around 210 pupils, and Ottery St Mary Primary School with around 356 pupils.The King's School, located on the outskirts of the town, was established as a choir school by Bishop John Grandisson in 1335, but was replaced by a grammar school by Henry VIII in 1545. It became a comprehensive school in 1982 and is now a government-endowed Sports College with access to facilities shared by the public – namely the LED Sports Centre. The school has 1,100 students and 80 teachers.
Local traditions
Tar Barrels
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 17 barrels are lit outside each of the four public houses in the town.. The barrels, increasing in size up to 30 kg, 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 coverage. Nevertheless, the event continues and the town of 7,000 people increases to well over 10,000. During the event all roads in and out of Ottery are closed for safety reasons with diversions in place.
On 30 October 2008 the annual event was threatened by a severe hailstorm, which hit East Devon shortly after midnight, with the Fire Service describing the situation in the Ottery St Mary area as "absolute chaos". 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 5 November 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, however, and both the carnival procession and the Tar Barrels and bonfire night celebrations went ahead as planned.
In 2009, the Factory Barrel was sabotaged by a visitor who threw an aerosol can into the barrel. The can exploded in the heat and 12 spectators required treatment for burns. In an unrelated incident, the roof of the old fire station burned down on the night of the 2009 tar barrels.
In 2020, the tar barrel event was cancelled as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, however in recent years it has recommenced.
Pixie Day
is an old tradition which takes place annually in June. The day commemorates a legend of pixies being banished from the town to local caves known as the 'Pixie's Parlour'.The Pixie Day legend originates from the early days of Christianity, when a local bishop decided to build a church in Otteri, and commissioned a set of bells to come from Wales, and to be escorted by monks on their journey.
On hearing of this, the pixies were worried, as they knew that once the bells were installed it would be the death knell of their rule over the land. So they cast a spell over the monks to redirect them from the road to Otteri to the road leading them to the cliff's edge at Sidmouth. Just as the monks were about to fall over the cliff, one of the monks stubbed his toe on a rock and said "God bless my soul" and the spell was said to be broken.
The bells were then brought to Otteri and installed. However, the pixies' spell was not completely broken; each year on a day in June the 'pixies' come out and capture the town's bell ringers 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 Pixie's Parlour in the Town Square.