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Welcome to my food and travel website

Martin Hesp

Exmoor Lockdown Diary 44 - Remembering The Manor

Exmoor Lockdown Diary 44 - Remembering The Manor

The big rope swing at Chargot

The big rope swing at Chargot

This website was never meant to get close-up and personal, but so many people have contacted me over the past 24 hours on social media asking about the old manor house where we lived for years, I thought I’d put up a few more photos I’ve just found and scanned.

A lot of these were taken during one memorable New Year’s party we had there. Our get-togethers on those occasions really did become legendary - sometimes w’ed have more than 50 people sitting down for a 7-course dinner - which I’d cook. God knows where I got the money or the energy from.

There are some legendary West Somerset characters in these photos - alas, some of them have gone on to that great lockdown in the sky now…

Altogether I lived at the manor for over 15 years - at first renting a flat at the rear of the house form my old friend Sir Edward Malet. Later I returned there to live with my beautiful wife Sue and our little boy Harry and then our wonderful daughter Nancy…

One of my brothers, John, even built a beautiful gaff-rigger in one of the barns while we lived at the manor.

Hope, the gaff-rigger, leaving the manor for her maiden voyage in Cornwall

Hope, the gaff-rigger, leaving the manor for her maiden voyage in Cornwall

We had some very, very, good times in that old house.

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Exmoor Lockdown Diary 45 - I Spent a Year Writing About the Harbours of the West

Exmoor Lockdown Diary 45 - I Spent a Year Writing About the Harbours of the West

Bob Bell - Letter From America - Old Record Players While "Sheltering In Place"

Bob Bell - Letter From America - Old Record Players While "Sheltering In Place"