Think of the England Old and Green

The magnificent Drum Inn, Cockington designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens.

Pevsner (Buildings of Enland- South Devon) says,' The VILLAGE of Cockington is famous for its thatched cottages, notably the FORGE, and only a little too perfectly kept to satisfy. It has become a standard afternoon trip for visitors to Torquay, and there is complete harmony betwen the sight-seeing townsman, the cottages ready to be admired, and the DRUM INN, by Lutyens, built 1934 and completed 1936. This has very tall thatched roofs, but is otherwise in its detail not Devonian.

The lines of Whistler's poem are engraved on a window at the inn

Think of the England old and green
You wander and are happy in,
And if the hour of peril come
Find, in your own land heard, that drum
--- and beat it!

The pub is very large and was built to accomodate a possible major development. If that should be mooted again then we should all bang that drum.

We called in for a drink after an evening walk along the leafy sunken lanes and wooded paths of Cockington. The lanes seemed even more sunken on the way back in the dark.