England part X: Ottery St Mary

The last place we stopped and made a proper tourist visit was the very nice town of Ottery St Mary, in Devon. The place takes its name from the river Otter, which again is named for the animal.

Besides being a quaint English town with all that that entails in the form of narrow lanes, ancient buildings and one way streets to make a grown man cry, Ottery St Mary is also known as the birthplace of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. One of the most famous names of English literature, the philandering, moneybegging dopehead inspired Coleridge wrote such masterworks as The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan.

All Ottery St Mary pics here.

The church in all its splendor. Coleridge's father was the vicar at the church and principal of the King Henry VIIIs grammar school.


Looks like some ancient form of public humiliation.


The poet hisself on the graveyard wall. He's buried at St Michael's church in Highgate, London.