Haldon racecourse and around...

I have also seen the lime kilns... aren't they down a road which then turns into a path? Maybe the first turn on the left as you come off Haldon Hill where at Christmas they sell trees. Then down through another smaller path through the woods and suddenly there's some small lakes? Aren't the kilns along that route somewhere, if not actually by the lakes (or ponds as they probably are)? I'll rack my brains, it's been fifteen years or more since I did that walk.

You will find all you want to know here Barton

www.ccanw.co.uk/assets/files/Haldon-Final.pdf

The leaflet that Dave has a link to makes mention of the great houses in and around Haldon, one of which is Canonteign.

In case it is of interest to anyone on here I purchased the turret clock that sat in the tower of the house until 1980, and which was made by Thomas & Jonas Pollard, details of which are below.

It has since been fully restored and is now sitting in a puporse made tower built by a friend of mine on the Isle of Man.

Note that the small dial on the movement is not the one used to tell the time by, that is obviously the large one shown seperately, but is the one used to set the time.

Turret Clock by T & J Pollard of Exeter.

This clock was removed from the clock tower at Canonteign House in 1980 and was stored in a barn near Christow, a village a few miles hence, before being moved to my former home in Honiton. It is signed on the setting dial ‘T & J Pollard, Exeter’.

It was made circa 1815 for Lord Exmouth, possibly still known as Admiral Pellow, by the Exeter clockmaker Thomas Pollard and his brother, the Crediton maker Jonas Pollard, for his country home, Canonteign House although it was lived in by his relatives as he chose to live nearer the sea in what is now Bitton House in Teignmouth.

The clock was mentioned in a letter written by Jonas Pollard as a reference regarding a tender for the erecting of a clock in the Tiverton Pannier market, a fact recorded in Devon Clocks and Clockmakers by Clive Ponsford. It is known that other clocks made for public use by the Pollard brothers included those at Shillingford St George (1812), Talaton (1817) and Dunsford (1830). It would appear that they were often called upon to make turret clocks for the fine country houses of Devon including one at Haldon House circa 1817.

Thomas Pollard of Exeter was the son of John Pollard from Crediton and his wife Martha. He was babtised in 1763 and died on the 6th of March 1846. His brother Jonas Pollard of Crediton was born in 1773 and married Dorothy Burridge in 1806. He died on the 30th of April 1835 leaving a wife and thirteen children. It was noted that he erected a fine clock facing Crediton Market, at his own expense, for public use. (Exeter Flying Post, 16th of December 1824)