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Friday 28 April 2017

A-Z Challenge 2017 - Houses, some real,some not - 'X'

X - EXmoor House

I hope you will agree that this is one way to deal with the troublesome letter 'X'.


Exmoor House, Dulverton, Somerset
(20 July 2010, by Nilfanion - CC BY-SA 3.0)
Exmoor House was built as the Dulverton Workhouse. The golden lettering above the door declares that date to have been  -


The west half of the 'T' shaped layout was the men's and boys' accommodation with the women and girls in the east.
After 1930 only vagrants' casual wards remained; later it was used as the Exmoor training centre for girls.

It then became the Rural District Offices. Today it is the Headquarters of the Exmoor National Park Authority.

Dulverton lies in the valley of the River Barle; river and valley are a biological Site of Special Scientific Interest.

The river passes under a pre-historic clapper bridge. The name clapper derives from the medieval Latin "claperius" - a pile of stones. The bridge appeared in a commemorative series of Great Britain's postage stamps in 2015.

Tarr Steps
It's now a scheduled ancient monument and dates from c1000BC.

The stone slabs making up the bridge weigh up to 5 tons each and according to local legend were placed there by the devil to win a bet.

Now doesn't 'X' have associations with the devil??

7 comments:

FinnBadger said...

I think this is a perfectly valid way to deal with X. And a fantastic post and bonus revisit to one of the stamps in that remarkable set.

Phillip | X is for Xanthophytes | And they’re on XL mail

Kristin said...

I imagine those stones would be slippery. This X house is probably happier in its present guise.

Finding Eliza

Emily in Ecuador said...

At least your letter X is an actual word with a physical building. I went with words that have been submitted for inclusion in the dictionary.

Emily | My Life In Ecuador | Xanthophobia, Xenoepist, Xyzlacatosis

Mail Adventures said...

I've seen a lot of creativity around the X letter today.
I like that you included the stamp.
-----
Eva - Mail Adventures

Hilary Melton-Butcher said...

Hi Bob - that's great ... I hadn't seen about the centre - as I went along the north coast route .. but now I know it's there ... I'll check in sometime .. well done - great X

That bridge is quite extraordinary and has to be on my list to visit when I go down ... cheers Hilary


http://positiveletters.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/x-is-for-x-war-facts.html

Deepa said...

Ahem Ahem....eX huh....I like you already
X is a tough one.
Nice take for X

A Peice Of My Life

Jo said...

Workhouses were something of a disgrace. Never heard of a clapper bridge. Isn't it amazing what the prehistoric people achieved without machinery?