Beer, Devon
Encyclopedia
The village of Beer is in south-east Devon
Devon
Devon is a large county in southwestern England. The county is sometimes referred to as Devonshire, although the term is rarely used inside the county itself as the county has never been officially "shired", it often indicates a traditional or historical context.The county shares borders with...

, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, on Lyme Bay
Lyme Bay
Lyme Bay is an area of the English Channel situated in the southwest of England between Torbay in the west and Portland in the east. The counties of Devon and Dorset front onto the bay,-Geology:...

.

Location

The village of Beer is situated on the 95-mile long Jurassic Coast
Jurassic Coast
The Jurassic Coast is a World Heritage Site on the English Channel coast of southern England. The site stretches from Orcombe Point near Exmouth in East Devon to Old Harry Rocks near Swanage in East Dorset, a distance of ....

, England's first natural World Heritage Site
World Heritage Site
A UNESCO World Heritage Site is a place that is listed by the UNESCO as of special cultural or physical significance...

 and its picturesque cliffs, including Beer Head, form part of the South West Coast Path
South West Coast Path
The South West Coast Path is Britain's longest waymarked long-distance footpath and a National Trail. It stretches for , running from Minehead in Somerset, along the coasts of Devon and Cornwall, to Poole Harbour in Dorset. Since it rises and falls with every river mouth, it is also one of the more...

.

Beer lies about two kilometres west of Seaton
Seaton, Devon
Seaton is a seaside town in East Devon on the south coast of England. It faces onto Lyme Bay, to the west of the mouth of the River Axe with red cliffs to one side and white cliffs on the other. Axmouth and Beer are nearby...

, about 35 kilometres east of the city centre of Exeter
Exeter
Exeter is a historic city in Devon, England. It lies within the ceremonial county of Devon, of which it is the county town as well as the home of Devon County Council. Currently the administrative area has the status of a non-metropolitan district, and is therefore under the administration of the...

 and 13 kilometres east of Sidmouth
Sidmouth
Sidmouth is a small town on the English Channel coast in Devon, South West England. The town lies at the mouth of the River Sid in the East Devon district, south east of Exeter. It has a population of about 15,000, of whom 40% are over 65....

.

The Village

The name is not derived from the drink
Beer
Beer is the world's most widely consumed andprobably oldest alcoholic beverage; it is the third most popular drink overall, after water and tea. It is produced by the brewing and fermentation of sugars, mainly derived from malted cereal grains, most commonly malted barley and malted wheat...

 but from the old Anglo-Saxon
Old English language
Old English or Anglo-Saxon is an early form of the English language that was spoken and written by the Anglo-Saxons and their descendants in parts of what are now England and southeastern Scotland between at least the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century...

 word "bearu" ("grove
Grove (nature)
A grove is a small group of trees with minimal or no undergrowth, such as a sequoia grove, or a small orchard planted for the cultivation of fruits or nuts...

"), referring to the original forest
Forest
A forest, also referred to as a wood or the woods, is an area with a high density of trees. As with cities, depending where you are in the world, what is considered a forest may vary significantly in size and have various classification according to how and what of the forest is composed...

ation that surrounded the town.

It is a pretty coastal village that grew up around a smugglers' cove and caves which were once used to store contraband goods. These are now part of the attraction of the village. Many of the buildings are faced with flint
Flint
Flint is a hard, sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as a variety of chert. It occurs chiefly as nodules and masses in sedimentary rocks, such as chalks and limestones. Inside the nodule, flint is usually dark grey, black, green, white, or brown in colour, and...

, a hard glassy stone found in the local chalk
Chalk
Chalk is a soft, white, porous sedimentary rock, a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite. Calcite is calcium carbonate or CaCO3. It forms under reasonably deep marine conditions from the gradual accumulation of minute calcite plates shed from micro-organisms called coccolithophores....

 rock.

Historically, the main sources of income for the village include fishing
Fishing
Fishing is the activity of trying to catch wild fish. Fish are normally caught in the wild. Techniques for catching fish include hand gathering, spearing, netting, angling and trapping....

 and lace
Lace
Lace is an openwork fabric, patterned with open holes in the work, made by machine or by hand. The holes can be formed via removal of threads or cloth from a previously woven fabric, but more often open spaces are created as part of the lace fabric. Lace-making is an ancient craft. True lace was...

 production. Boats are winched up the beach as there is no harbour, and fresh fish is sold nearby. Nowadays small electrically driven winches using steel cables or tractors are located on the beach to haul boats in. Higher up is an old manual capstan
Capstan (nautical)
A capstan is a vertical-axled rotating machine developed for use on sailing ships to apply force to ropes, cables, and hawsers. The principle is similar to that of the windlass, which has a horizontal axle.- History :...

 operated by up to 20 men, now disused.

A brook winds its way in an open conduit alongside the main road down to the sea.

A WW2 pill box is located close to the Western side of the beach exit, somewhat disguised by the stonework, one of the slits is visible in the photograph..

The shape of the coastline allowed local seafarers to operate in weather conditions when other towns could not, as it is protected from the prevailing westerly winds by Beer Head and the chalk cliffs which are the furthest outcrop of limestone on the SW coast.

Today, the sources of income are mainly tourism
Tourism
Tourism is travel for recreational, leisure or business purposes. The World Tourism Organization defines tourists as people "traveling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes".Tourism has become a...

 and fishing. Beer is also the home of the Pecorama model railway
Rail transport modelling
Railway modelling or model railroading is a hobby in which rail transport systems are modelled at a reduced scale...

 exhibition centre.

Beer has a steep pebble beach. This makes walking on the beach difficult. Long rubber mats — actually recycled conveyor belt
Conveyor belt
A conveyor belt consists of two or more pulleys, with a continuous loop of material - the conveyor belt - that rotates about them. One or both of the pulleys are powered, moving the belt and the material on the belt forward. The powered pulley is called the drive pulley while the unpowered pulley...

s — are laid down to assist walkers.

Beer is home to an enormous man-made cave complex, the Beer Quarry Caves
Beer Quarry Caves
Beer Quarry Caves is a man-made limestone underground complex located about a mile west of the village of Beer, Devon, and the main source in England for beer stone...

, resulting from the quarrying of Beer stone. This stone has been prized since Roman
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

 times, because of its workability for carving and for its gentle yellow colour on exposure to air. Beer stone was used in the construction of 24 cathedrals around the UK, including Exeter Cathedral
Exeter Cathedral
Exeter Cathedral, the Cathedral Church of Saint Peter at Exeter, is an Anglican cathedral, and the seat of the Bishop of Exeter, in the city of Exeter, Devon in South West England....

, Westminster Abbey
Westminster Abbey
The Collegiate Church of St Peter at Westminster, popularly known as Westminster Abbey, is a large, mainly Gothic church, in the City of Westminster, London, United Kingdom, located just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is the traditional place of coronation and burial site for English,...

 and St. Paul's Cathedral, and was also used in the building of Christchurch Cathedral, St.Louis. Missouri, USA.
Bovey House, an Elizabethan
Elizabethan architecture
Elizabethan architecture is the term given to early Renaissance architecture in England, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Historically, the period corresponds to the Cinquecento in Italy, the Early Renaissance in France, and the Plateresque style in Spain...

 manor house
Manor house
A manor house is a country house that historically formed the administrative centre of a manor, the lowest unit of territorial organisation in the feudal system in Europe. The term is applied to country houses that belonged to the gentry and other grand stately homes...

, is a mile inland.

Starre House, the oldest house in Beer is built using the local Beer stone that has been quarried since Roman times.

Bacteria taken from cliffs at Beer on the South Coast were launched to the International Space Station
International Space Station
The International Space Station is a habitable, artificial satellite in low Earth orbit. The ISS follows the Salyut, Almaz, Cosmos, Skylab, and Mir space stations, as the 11th space station launched, not including the Genesis I and II prototypes...

 in 2008. The Beer microbes were placed on the European Space Agency's (Esa) Technology Exposure Facility and were sent up still sitting on, and in, small chunks of cliff rock from the Jurassic Coast
Jurassic Coast
The Jurassic Coast is a World Heritage Site on the English Channel coast of southern England. The site stretches from Orcombe Point near Exmouth in East Devon to Old Harry Rocks near Swanage in East Dorset, a distance of ....

. After 553-days they found that many were still alive. The survivors are now reproducing in a laboratory. This was part of an experiment to study the survival of microbes (which naturally live on the stone) in extreme conditions. A new species of cyanobacteria was isolated at the Open University
Open University
The Open University is a distance learning and research university founded by Royal Charter in the United Kingdom...

 that could be used in future space settlements on the moon and Mars to produce oxygen and break down rocks.

Notable people

  • William George Aston
    William George Aston
    William George Aston was a British diplomat, author and scholar-expert in the language and history of Japan and Korea.-Early life:...

     (1841–1911) died in Beer.
  • Richard Gush
    Richard Gush
    Richard Gush was an 1820 Settler. Originally from Beer, a village in Devon, England, he settled in Salem, near Grahamstown in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. He earned renown by saving Salem from Xhosa warriors. A devout Quaker, he rode to meet them unarmed...

     (1789–1858) was born in Beer.
  • Rowland Molony
    Rowland Molony
    -Life:Molony graduated from St John's Catholic Comprehensive School Gravesend, Kent, in 1962, and joined the RAF. He spent several years in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, where he married the artist Elizabeth Baxendale, and has two daughters. He now lives in Beer, Devon....

     (born 1946) lives in Beer.
  • Charles William Peach
    Charles William Peach
    Charles William Peach was a British naturalist and geologist.-Biography:He was born at Wansford, Cambridgeshire; his father at the time was a saddler and harness-maker, and afterwards became an innkeeper, farming about eighty acres of land...

     (1800–1886) lived in Beer.

See also

The Jurassic Coast
Jurassic Coast
The Jurassic Coast is a World Heritage Site on the English Channel coast of southern England. The site stretches from Orcombe Point near Exmouth in East Devon to Old Harry Rocks near Swanage in East Dorset, a distance of ....

 stretches over a distance of 153 kilometres (95 mi),
from Orcombe Point
Orcombe Point
Orcombe Point is a coastal feature near Exmouth, Devon, on the south coast of England. It lies about south of the city of Exeter, southeast of Exmouth town centre and about southwest of Sidmouth....

 near Exmouth
Exmouth, Devon
Exmouth is a port town, civil parish and seaside resort in East Devon, England, sited on the east bank of the mouth of the River Exe. In 2001, it had a population of 32,972.-History:...

, in the west, to Old Harry Rocks
Old Harry Rocks
The Old Harry Rocks are two chalk sea stacks located at Handfast Point, on the Isle of Purbeck in Dorset, southern England.- Location :Old Harry Rocks lie directly east of Studland, about 4 kilometres northeast of Swanage, and about 10 kilometres south of the large towns of Poole and...

 on the Isle of Purbeck
Isle of Purbeck
The Isle of Purbeck, not a true island but a peninsula, is in the county of Dorset, England. It is bordered by the English Channel to the south and east, where steep cliffs fall to the sea; and by the marshy lands of the River Frome and Poole Harbour to the north. Its western boundary is less well...

, in the east. The coastal exposures along the coastline provide a continuous sequence of Triassic
Triassic
The Triassic is a geologic period and system that extends from about 250 to 200 Mya . As the first period of the Mesozoic Era, the Triassic follows the Permian and is followed by the Jurassic. Both the start and end of the Triassic are marked by major extinction events...

, Jurassic
Jurassic
The Jurassic is a geologic period and system that extends from about Mya to  Mya, that is, from the end of the Triassic to the beginning of the Cretaceous. The Jurassic constitutes the middle period of the Mesozoic era, also known as the age of reptiles. The start of the period is marked by...

 and Cretaceous
Cretaceous
The Cretaceous , derived from the Latin "creta" , usually abbreviated K for its German translation Kreide , is a geologic period and system from circa to million years ago. In the geologic timescale, the Cretaceous follows the Jurassic period and is followed by the Paleogene period of the...

 rock formations spanning approximately 185 million years of the Earths history. The localities along the Jurassic Coast includes a large range of important fossil
Fossil
Fossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals , plants, and other organisms from the remote past...

 zones.

External links

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