May 18, 2018 — Tiverton and Knightshayes Court

Our last day in Devon and we decided to visit the Tiverton Museum of Mid Devon Life in the morning, make a lunch reservation at Frou Frou and then drive up to Knightshayes in the afternoon. Therefore, after breakfast we drove into Tiverton and parked. Made the easy two-minute walk to the museum, paid and entered. It looks small, but it’s very big and fascinating. It deals with prehistory, agriculture over the years, daily life over the years, the wool trade, the lace trade and finally the railway with a full-size locomotive in one gallery. The lace for Queen Victoria’s wedding dress was made in Tiverton and the lace for all Royal weddings since has been made here. We wondered if Meghan’s lace was made here for her wedding to Prince Harry tomorrow. No one seemed to know. We got to see almost everything and I bought bookplates for Angie and Scout in the gift shop. Ed took my picture on the locomotive too. Tiverton Museum of Mid Devon Life, Beck's Square, Tiverton EX16 6PJ; tel: +44 (0)1884 256295; tivertontic@tivertonmuseum.org.uk; Click here for the Tiverton Museum of Mid Devon Life web site

At that point we needed to walk fairly quickly to Frou Frou for our lunch reservation. Our table by the door was waiting as requested. Ed got the chicken wrapped in Parma ham with red pepper sauce and I got the lamb steak . . . both excellent. Ed got the cheesecake with passion fruit for dessert and I got the affogato with vanilla ice cream, two small macaroons and an espresso. The waitress remembered Ed liked ice in his water and I didn’t. It was fun. We’d met our waitress’s fiancé on Saturday. Starting to feel like home; time to move.

After lunch we drove up to Knightshayes Court, former home of the Heathcoat Amory family who donated it to the National Trust. All the guidebook information, including the National Trust, said not to use sat.-nav. (GPS) because it wasn’t accurate but we used Google Maps on my phone and it worked perfectly although we did carefully check road signs. We parked and walked to the house and through it. It’s very impressive although the docents were unusually quiet. After we toured the house, we walked through the beautiful gardens. When we left, Google failed us. I couldn’t get it to connect. Fortunately we remembered the way home but Google wouldn’t connect the entire way. We need it tomorrow to find our new cottage in the Cotswolds! Knightshayes Court, Bolham, Tiverton, Devon, EX16 7RQ; tel: +44 (0)1884 254665; Click here for the Knightshayes Court National Trust web site

I did get Google Maps on my phone working again. I think Vodafone went down in our area because LeFrench Mobile uses Vodafone in the UK. Fingers crossed for tomorrow . . .