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rom a remote, sandstone ledge

drops a bewildered man in a

wetsuit. It’s taken an eternity for

him to jump, and he plummets

through the air with an

expression somewhere between

elation and terror. The rocks

zooming past behind him are tens

of millions of years old; the bay

he’s arrowing into has witnessed

visitors ranging from plesiosaurs

to pirates. And, with the sun illuminating the red cliffs and

ivied, coastal woodland, there comes an almighty splash

as the October-cold sea rushes up to swallow him. For the

man — who happens to be me — it’s an unutterable thrill.

Tom Devey, the guide who’s just patiently coaxed me

into stepping off a 26ft precipice, gives a thumbs-up from

the shore and gestures to a cove nearby. We’ve spent the

past hour clambering over — and leaping from — the

boulders and sea stacks of Devon’s southeastern coastline

and it’s now time for a break.

“I’ve got hot chocolate,” he grins, patting his pack and

leading us to a tiny beach walled off by giant shelves of

rock. As he pours from the thermos, he points out the

storage holes and camping spots favoured by generations

of smugglers who used this shoreline to spirit illicit

shipments of liquor and tobacco into the West Country.

“On the subject,” he says, producing a hip flask. “Tot of

rum in that?”

On Devon’s southeast coast, the history is spread

as thickly as clotted cream. I’m here to discover more

about the area’s past and present — feet first, in the case

of this coasteering trip near the hill-hidden hamlet of

Maidencombe — on a journey from the ancient city of

Exeter to the Jurassic Coast, via the pub-dotted ports of

the Exe Estuary.

Before then, Tom — who works for Rock Solid

Coasteering — leads me through some further jumps.

We swim under natural arches and climb rocks, then

plunge, drink-warmed, back into the sea. At one point, a

grey seal appears, bobbing in the swell just feet away. Tom

tells a tale of three bootleggers blockaded into a sea cave

by the authorities. “They were trying to drown them,” he

explains, as we look east along a series of hefty headlands.

“But when they unsealed it three days later, there was no

sign of the bodies. People think the men found a way into

the wider cave system and escaped inland.”

The busy quays and taverns of Exeter, 15 miles to the

north at the head of the estuary, would’ve been the obvious

place to flee. Devon’s county town was no stranger to

smugglers and seafarers during the 17th and 18th centuries,

and they were far from the first to flock there. Long before,

its plum location had attracted Roman and Norman

invaders, and, in between their arrival, Saxon settlers.

“Some say that when the Normans turned up, the

medieval bishop of Exeter stood on the town gate, bared

his bottom and farted at William the Conqueror!” says

David Radstone, one of the city’s Red Coat guides, with

palpable relish. I meet him on Cathedral Green for a

free city tour, in the shadow of the one of the mightiest

religious buildings in England. The streets around us are

filled with a mixture of timbered, medieval buildings and

harsher, post-war architecture. Gargoyles and grotesques

glower down from the cathedral guttering.

Home to a large university, the city is fascinating. In

the centuries since the Normans arrived, David explains,

Exeter has taken on various guises, from prosperous

merchant city and hub of the UK cloth trade (in 1700, 80%

of Exeter’s residents were employed in the wool industry)

to ill-fated Luftwaffe target during the Baedeker Raids,

during which 1,500 homes were destroyed in a single

night in May 1942.

As we wander the centre, David ties together the

strands of the city’s past. We run our hands over the

original Roman city walls, stand under imposing

Georgian townhouses and stand agog in front of before-

and-after photos of the bomb-damaged city. In the

distance, green hills bulge into view. “It’s an easy city to

live in — 70,000 locals; 25,000 students. You can see the

countryside from almost anywhere,” says David.

We end up at the handsome quay, once abuzz with

ships and hundredweights of yarn. Today, its old tunnels

and warehouses house pizza restaurants, vintage stores

and bike-hire outlets. “It has a life again,” enthuses the

server at The Coffee Cellar, preparing a latte. He points

to a building across the water. “That was once the tram

substation. It’s now an indoor climbing centre.”

Away from the quay, among Exeter’s respectable

cluster of notable attractions, the Royal Albert Memorial

Museum & Art Gallery is fantastic. I’m particularly

120 nationalgeographic.co.uk/travel

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