The four Kestrel chicks are now out, lurking in their loft. I’m going to try to get some pictures.

Oh yes, and I forgot to mention the building is also home to breeding Barn Owls. Caught a glimpse of this one whilst I was watching the Kestrels. He leapt into the crèche – pile of straw – when he saw me coming.

[edit - 21 June] It’s now the monsoon season. I’m worried hunting small rodents for four hungry youngsters will be very difficult for the parents so I’ve hit on a cunning plan. Titus incessantly brings us small rodent gifts which he exchanges for the preferred Felix or Whiskas. I have an ice-cream tub in the fridge – rebadged with inserted ‘M’ – in which to store these offerings. Once or twice a day I chuck the corpses up into the straw. First time I did it I came back an hour later to find my offerings had disappeared.

[23 June] The two largest chicks are sitting on the edge of the tallet like kids on the high diving board. When I approach they skedaddle up the straw, skimming their wing-assisted way into their hideout, rather than the ungainly scuttle they’ve used previously.

[24 June] The big two are airborne, screeching in the strong wind, flying 50 metres to a nearby tree. The weather is absolutely foul; torrential rain, strong gusty winds. No sign of Mum & Dad.

Later. My friend Chris Bromage reckons it’s a ‘Skunk Cabbage’ and , looking at the Wiki I think he’s correct. I went down to give ours a good sniffing but it doesn’t register much above the ambient cow odours. However a couple of flies were crawling around inside the furled leaf, and flies know best – at least in these matters. Maybe it’ll smell more strongly when it flowers & needs pollinators?  Your ace botanical reporter will add to this intriguing tale when it does.  Meanwhile the next question is ‘How did it get there?’.

In recent years the birds have moved from a big, raggedy nest in a nearby Ash into the building itself, probably to avoid egg-thieving Magpies. They now access the nest, in the ‘tallet’ (a hay-loft in Devonish) on a pile of ancient hay, via a six-inch hole in the front barge boards. We first came across the adult precariously hanging from the entrance rim. From a distance, seeing the barred markings I thought at first it was a woodpecker but she popped in, leaving her long, unmistakable tail outside. The tail was pulled in, she withdrew and a chick was then perfectly framed by the circular hole. Fluffy dark grey and a lot less handsome than Gonzo, it gratefully gulped the proffered morsel. We left them to it, but will go by for a peek again today.

Next day the adult kestrels weren’t around so I crept into the barn and peered up at the nest site. I couldn’t see anything but as I was leaving a barn owl flew out, passing a few feet over my head. It was, as usual, snowy white but had dark chocolate markings which I haven’t seen before: a beautiful ghost.

Killigrew, needing to assess his new fiefdom, was subsequently responsible for commissioning the eminent surveyor, John Norden, to draw up his Terra of 1598. An 18th century copy of this is held in the Devon Studies Library and a facsimile (of this copy?) in the Bodleian.

The elegant Terra is far more than just a map, as it names occupants and lists their holdings and rents. Thus we can learn, & perhaps speculate further, about Knowle Farm. The house is shown as two unnamed buildings located just above the compass arrow in the image (obtained by my friend Glenn Bearne).

At that time the occupant of ‘Knowle Farm’ was one Robert Clase who, according to the Terra, farmed over 50 acres in and around Knowle. Amongst his holding were parts of each of the four fields we still own today. Field names have changed: Clase’s ‘Great Meade’ has become our ‘Broad Meadow’, with almost identical boundaries. He had a wooded area around his house, corresponding to part of our current orchard. All this engenders a strong sense of continuity lasting, perhaps unbroken, over four centuries. It makes me keener than ever to pass on our holding in it’s entirety.

Also interesting is the family name of Robert Clase. It’s the same name – give or take flexible spelling mores – as that of Thomas Classe, the medieval ravisher of two centuries before.

The Terra names the occupants of the various houses in what was obviously a thriving community, colour coding the field boundaries of each. Clearly The Barton, on a different site from today’s incarnation, was the largest landholder at the time. Stowford, of the snowy walls, is the only other named dwelling in the village. The roads and farm lanes still follow almost identical paths today.

An large image of the full, double page map of Knowle can be seen here.

ref: Bodleian Library. A Terra and perfecte description of the hundred of Crediton alias Kirton in the Countye of Devon made in the yeare of Christe 1598 by John Norden. Scale 1:3,168. Reduced facsimile, published 2000

Forty-three years together allows me to say authoritatively that Sarah has a remarkable talent for creative improvisation. In her hands cheese wax is transformed into demons, socks into hobby-horses, miscellaneous left-overs into wonderful meals. Camouflaged radiators & power-points appear as marble or wood to disappear into the background. Scraps of fabric & paint become a startling replica of the ‘Beethoven Frieze’. Furniture destined for the tip is revitalised by decorative painting. Anything is possible. She has applied her flair, her magic, to this house, with paint, ceramics & fabrics, as I endeavour to illustrate here.

Last Christmas someone gave us one of those presentation boxes of fancy cheese. Whilst we tucked in Sarah started messing around with the red, black & white wax casings. Within a few minutes she’d modelled ‘Damien & Darryl’, photographed here using a segment of a Roger Dean illustration as a hellish Bosch backdrop.

Our predecessor, Mrs Ford, proudly told us she hadn’t “spent a penny on the place in 40 years” … and it showed. There were acres of red flock wallpaper, leaky, collapsing thatch, rubber wiring, lead pipes and no warmth, physical or metaphysical. My, it was a gloomy house then! The upside, of course, was that old features were still present, although often concealed.

So when we arrived Sarah turned her energies and considerable artistic skills to re-enervating the house. Heavily armed with hot-air gun, paint strippers, steamers, and aided by Bobski, the chain-smoking & ancient builder, she set about the daunting task.However, painting was a larger project & considerably more arduous. Soft paint effects have been created using marbling, rag rolling and sponging techniques and clay paints employed to create subtle, earthy finishes. Sarah has also added some individual murals in several rooms and imparted a theatrical character to the hall, stairwell, & sixty-foot upstairs landing. The hall and stairwell have been painted to appear as marble & sandstone ashlar blocks, which combined with the Eastern brass lamps, gives a Saracen castle feel. The upstairs landing, which is airy & light appears as an outside terrace, having pale blue sky with faint clouds and the hint of an ivy covered balustrade.

We have an Art Deco bathroom, housing the original lino & claw-and-ball bath, with images recreated from work of Klimt and the designer Erté , including the fabulous Lorelei. My favourite is Sarah’s ‘Treasure chest’, a made-over travellers’ chest bought for a fiver and decorated with decoupaged clippings from magazines & wrapping paper.

Sarah’s ceramics are iconic too. Without them our ‘Good Life’ era would have been impecunious and far less fun. Her Green Man fountain in the yard has always been much admired and appears as the logo on our brochure.

Who on earth would have been brave enough to knock off this knocker from the tradesman’s entrance to Castle Dracula? Why is it on our front door?

We call it ‘The Thunder-box’ after the farcical episode of Apthorpe’s field toilet in ‘Men at Arms’ had caused Jemma some mirth as a teenager. Also the flush handle is a stylish brass and enamel detonator.

Although the Thunder-box looks sophisticated it has fairly primitive engineering under the hood. Flushing is not siphonic, working by gravity alone from a tank concealed next door in the kitchen. The operating mechanism is a rather Heath Robinson affair, comprising wires, levers & pulleys, running through the wall from it’s hiding place beneath the seat. To avoid damaging this, the detonator should be lifted, held up for the required duration and then gently returned before release: never just lifted & released.

ref: The Sword of Honour trilogy by Evelyn Waugh is his look at the Second World War. It consists of three novels, Men at Arms (1952), Officers and Gentlemen (1955) and Unconditional Surrender (1961), which loosely parallel his war time experiences.

: Jemma’s instructions can be found here

We were chuffed to learn that Peter Beacham, in his classic series of essays on the architectural heritage of Devon, included a mention & picture he took at Knowle Farm. However, before we could get too puffed up about our splendid fireplaces, oak screen & historic features, we discovered he’d used a picture of our pigsties! Not only that, but he’d been somewhat patronising in describing them as “sophisticated for Devon”!

thanks to our good friend & neighbour Glenn Bearne, who owns the book.

ref: P Beacham, Devon Building: an Introduction to Local Traditions. Exeter, 1990

So the stage is set: enter the wildlife.

We see plenty of Roe deer in the neighbouring fields when they come up a’foraging from the woods above Copplestone. Mercifully they don’t come into our garden, which is a well tended oasis within the ring of our orchard, that provides us with six or seven acres of natural wilding.

Within this orchard are areas of reed, which provide cover for ground nesting birds such as snipe. Naturally there are plenty of trees for small birds to use too. There’s mistletoe there, horse mushrooms the size of dinner plates, bullrushes, water iris and ‘ragged robin’ (flowering as I write this). There’s also a pond with it’s own island. Nothing flash, the island is only about ten metres by five, but it does provide sheltered accommodation for moorhens, mallards and Canada geese. The Canadas have only been breeding here for a couple of years, since we sadly lost our domestic geese, and also since we hit on a way of removing the green layer of duckweed that used to cover the surface (but that’s another story). What I love about Canadas is they’re such dedicated parents. They’re never more than a foot or two from their young, and inevitably there’s one adult in front and the other bringing up the rear. David watched Titus – one of our predatory oriental cats – stalking the fortnight-old goslings. When he got near, both parents placed themselves to the fore, wings spread to the limit, heads down & hissing like steam engines. Off slunk Titus to look for easier prey and that, O best beloved, is why there are zillions of Canada geese in this country. To have a single breeding pair is wonderful, but Shobrooke lake in Crediton is now home to scores of them . In such numbers they are a tumultuous mob disturbing the peace, unsettling other birds & spoiling my early morning visits to watch the pair of Great Crested Grebes that nest there. These are the new grey squirrels.

We have two badger sets in the village & I’m told, by the Defra census, they are a healthy population, remarkably free from TB. They can be seen at dusk, especially on damp evenings, out looking for slugs & snails in the fields around their sets. A few years ago, in the middle of a scorching August, one started digging holes in our lawn. I decided to scare him off by setting up an arc light with a motion sensor. In the middle of the night I awoke to see the brilliant light from the 500 watt lamp shining through the curtains. Thrilled, I leapt up to look. There on my beautiful lawn, in the full limelight, was Brock, completely unscared and going about his snuffly business as usual. He only needed a top hat & tails, so I watched him for 5 minutes before rapping on the window at which he turned, gave me a baleful glare and lumbered off into the orchard.

We’ve another small pond at the far end of the garden; it’s under a big weeping willow with a twisted willow & Japanese maple nearby. We call it the Chinese garden & originally stocked the pond with two quid Koi tiddlers. Mr Heron waited a couple of years, when they were coming along nicely, then turned up and ate the lot. Afterwards he might have said “it was like shooting fish in a barrel”. Restocked with budget goldfish but a couple of years later I saw the largest grass snake I ever did see – head out one end of the pond, tail the other – and all the goldfish had disappeared. Sarah says this snake grows at every telling, but then snakes always do. After that our garden pond remains a sanctuary for indigenous amphibia only. It had plenty of frogs. toads and newts, although there don’t seem to be any around this year, either in our garden or anywhere else in Knowle.

Great place for birds too. Barn, Tawny and Little owls, kestrels and buzzards all nest within the village. Sparrowhawk, raven, heron and egret are often seen. Our garden is residence for a flock of goldfinch & the cob barn wall is a regular nesting site for pied wagtails. Skylark sing and I’m thrilled to record songthrush are back this year (heaven knows, we have enough snails to feed an army of them). I’ve seen Peregrine (3 in 23 years), Goldcrest, Lesser Spotted Woodpecker and many other uncommon birds over the years too. However my favourites are the House Martins that nest in the corners of our upstairs windows. One can stand in a room and, from this brilliant vantage point watch their constant industries; nest building (cob again), brooding, rearing and flight testing. Sure they shit on the windows a bit but it’s easy enough to wash off in the autumn when they leave.

There was the fox, chased into the house by our dogs, the rabbits nibbling the lawn, & the squirrels our strawberries, and so many more. Hope I’ve given a glimpse at the wildlife in our (apparently) formal garden and natural orchard beyond.

‘Unadorned’ because, of course, farming folk rarely indulge in frivolous embellishment. A turret or a tractor? No contest.

Knowle Farm exudes a sense of ‘belonging’; of being an organic part of the surrounding landscape. Its buildings are old, but more importantly they were built from materials at hand. They belong because they are made of the very fabric of their surroundings, of thatch, stone and cob. Such materials were grown, quarried and found on the farm.

The stone is soft, rose grey volcanic rubble, dug from two quarries in corners of the orchard. It was used in various states of undress; from the rustic randomness of the farmyard to the delicate geometry of the (snecked) Thatched Barn end wall. Similar stone was used in the house but, on the outside this is entirely concealed beneath a lime render. Unlike a modern painted surface, the unadorned render skin allows lichens to adhere, insects to shelter and the fabric of the house to breathe. Inside, the stone can be seen in two of the main fireplaces and in the kitchen floor.

Cob too, is about as local a material as you can get in Devon, thus our cob is the colour of our earth. The material is similar to the adobe used in another South West – that of the USA – but isn’t sun-baked into individual bricks. Instead gangs of itinerant labourers would turn up on farms in spring to erect cob walls. They used the material churned up through the winter in bullock yards; so mud, dung, straw and small stones. Wooden shuttering was placed around the tops of walls and a course about 2 feet high was added. After drying out for a few weeks a further course could be added. The strata can still be seen in some of the back walls of the farm buildings here.

Cob is a great material for house building. The external walls at Knowle Farm are up to 3 feet thick, and their high thermal capacity keeps the house cool in summer and warm in winter. Cob is very strong under compression and, as long as it is kept dry will last for centuries (obviously). It was used locally until the middle of the nineteenth century but may soon make a comeback as an energy-saving alternative to concrete in the drive to develop sustainable buildings

The house had a major thatch restoration in 2004 using ‘wheat reed’. This is a special strain of very hard and long stemmed wheat grown locally and specifically for roofing.
It cannot be combined, so is still seasoned by the traditional setting of sheaves into stooks, which can sometimes be seen in the neighbouring fields.We also have 25 metres of fine thatched cob wall, complete with former alcoves for bee skeps.

So there’s the natural materials; one last rant before I go, in case the Conservation Officer reads this. Why is it that listed buildings in this rural setting can be painted brilliant white, rather than iron oxide or some other ‘earth’ hue? I don’t mind white, picturesque cottages in a village setting, but they are hideously obtrusive in a country landscape. Lichens & mosses won’t grow on them: they look, and are sterile! I rest my case with the image below.