Beer is a village and civil parish in the

East Devon East Devon is a local government district in Devon, England. Its council has been based in Honiton since February 2019, and the largest town is Exmouth (with a population of 34,432 at the time of the 2011 census). The district was formed o ...

district of Devon, England. The village faces

Lyme Bay Lyme Bay is an area of the English Channel off the south coast of England. The south western counties of Devon and Dorset front onto the bay. The exact definitions of the bay vary. The eastern boundary is usually taken to be Portland Bill on the ...

and is a little over west of the town of Seaton. It is situated on the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site and its picturesque cliffs, including Beer Head, form part of the

South West Coast Path The South West Coast Path is England'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. Because it rises ...

. At the 2011 Census, the parish had a population of 1,317.

The village

Beer is mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086, at which time it was located within Colyton hundred and had 28 households. Its name is not derived from the drink, but from the Old English word ''bearu'', meaning " grove" and referring to the original forestation that surrounded the village. 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, a hard glassy stone found in the local

chalk Chalk is a soft, white, porous, sedimentary carbonate rock. It is a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite and originally formed deep under the sea by the compression of microscopic plankton that had settled to the sea floor. Chalk ...

rock. Historically, the main sources of income for the village included fishing and

lace Lace is a delicate fabric made of yarn or thread in an open weblike pattern, made by machine or by hand. Generally, lace is divided into two main categories, needlelace and bobbin lace, although there are other types of lace, such as knitted ...

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 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. The shape of the coastline allowed local seafarers to operate in weather conditions when other towns could not, because it is protected from the prevailing westerly winds by Beer Head and the chalk cliffs which are the westernmost outcrop of limestone on the southwest coast. Pecorama Pleasure Gardens - geograph

Nowadays, the sources of income are mainly tourism and fishing. Beer is also the home of the

Pecorama Pecorama (or Pecorama Pleasure Gardens) is a tourist attraction on the hillside above the village of Beer, Devon, in southwest England, that includes a display of many model railways, gardens, a shop, and the Beer Heights Light Railway. The at ...

(run by the

PECO PECO is a UK-based manufacturer of model railway accessories, especially trackwork, based at Pecorama, Beer in South Devon, England. PECO is the collective name for the Pritchard Patent Product Company Ltd, Peco Publications and Publicity L ...

model railway Railway modelling (UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Ireland) or model railroading (US and Canada) is a hobby in which rail transport systems are modelled at a reduced scale. The scale models include locomotives, rolling stock, streetcars, t ...

manufacturer), which includes pleasure gardens and the

Beer Heights Light Railway The Beer Heights Light Railway operates of minimum gauge track at Beer, Devon, England. It is part of Pecorama, an exhibition owned by Peco. Overview The official opening was by Rev. W.V. Awdry on 14 July 1975, at which time it offered ...

. Beer has a steep pebble beach. Beer is home to a cave complex, the

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. The tunnels resulted from 2,000 years of quarrying beer stone, which was par ...

, resulting from the quarrying of Beer stone. This stone has been prized since

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: * Rome, the capital city of Italy * Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lett ...

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, Westminster Abbey and

St. Paul's Cathedral St Paul's Cathedral is an Anglican cathedral in London and is the seat of the Bishop of London. The cathedral serves as the mother church of the Diocese of London. It is on Ludgate Hill at the highest point of the City of London and is a Gra ...

, and was also used in the building of Christchurch Cathedral, St.Louis. Missouri, United States. Bovey House, an

Elizabethan The Elizabethan era is the epoch in the Tudor period of the history of England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603). Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history. The symbol of Britannia (a female personific ...

manor house, is a mile inland. Bacteria taken from cliffs at Beer on the south coast were launched to the International Space Station 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. After 553-days scientists 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 that could be used in future space settlements on the Moon and Mars to produce oxygen and break down rocks. Beer Devon Common Lane

Transport

Roads

Beer is just off the A3052 which links

Exeter Exeter () is a city in Devon, South West England. It is situated on the River Exe, approximately northeast of Plymouth and southwest of Bristol. In Roman Britain, Exeter was established as the base of Legio II Augusta under the personal c ...

to the West and

Lyme Regis Lyme Regis is a town in west Dorset, England, west of Dorchester and east of Exeter. Sometimes dubbed the "Pearl of Dorset", it lies by the English Channel at the Dorset– Devon border. It has noted fossils in cliffs and beaches on the He ...

to the East.

Public transport

Beer's nearest railway station is

Axminster railway station Axminster railway station serves the town of Axminster in Devon, England. It is operated by South Western Railway and is situated on the West of England Main Line. It is down the line from . History The station opened on 19 July 1860 by LSW ...

, around away, which is on the Exeter to Waterloo line. There is a bus link from the rail station to Beer. The bus services in the village are provided by locally based AVMT Buses who run services to many of the nearby towns and villages including Seaton,

Axminster Axminster is a market town and civil parish on the eastern border of the county of Devon in England. It is from the county town of Exeter. The town is built on a hill overlooking the River Axe which heads towards the English Channel at Axmou ...

Branscombe Branscombe is a village in the East Devon district of the English County of Devon. The parish covers . Its permanent population in 2009 was estimated at 513 by the Family Health Services Authority, reducing to 507 at the 2011 Census. It is loc ...

, Sidmouth, and Colyton.

Notable people

William George Aston William George Aston (9 April 1841 – 22 November 1911) was an Anglo-Irish diplomat, author and scholar-expert in the language and history of Japan and Korea. Early life Aston was born near Derry, Ireland.Ricorso Aston, bio notes/ref> He dis ...

(1841–1911) died in Beer. *

Richard Gush Richard Gush (1789–1858) 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. His parents were Thomas and Mary Gush and his grandparents w ...

(1789–1858) was born in Beer. * Rowland Molony (born 1946) lives in Beer. *

Charles William Peach Charles William Peach ALS (30 September 1800 – 28 February 1886) was a British naturalist and geologist. He discovered fossils in Cornwall, after it had been stated by the geologists William Conybeare, that there were no fossil-bearing rocks ...

(1800–1886) lived in Beer. *

Jack Rattenbury Jack Rattenbury, nicknamed Rob Roy of the West (1778, in Beer, Devon – 1844), was an English smuggler. In 1837, after thirty years at sea as a fisherman, pilot, seaman and smuggler, he wrote about his life in a book called ''Memoirs of a Smuggler ...

(1778-1844) was born in Beer. * William Henry Woodgate (1827–1877) was born in Beer

References

External links

Beer and Seaton GeologyBBC heritage walk subpageBeer Parish Council
*
Beer Village Website
{{authority control Villages in Devon Seaside resorts in England Beaches of Devon Populated coastal places in Devon Geology of Devon Jurassic Coast