Qualla: Ottery St Mary

Ottery St Mary: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Emma White, CC BY-SA 2.0. On the evening of 5 November each year, the people of Ottery St Mary set fire to barrels soaked in tar and carry them through the town on their shoulders. The barrels can weigh up to thirty kilograms when fully alight. Crowds of more than ten thousand pack the streets to watch a population of seven thousand do something the rest of England gave up centuries ago. The tradition dates from the 17th century and may have started as a way to ward off evil spirits at Halloween, but its modern point is simpler: this is who Ottery still is. The town did not stop being itself when the rest of the country settled down.

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Image: Emma White | CC BY-SA 2.0

Ottery St Mary: Coleridge began here

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit User:ianmacm, CC BY-SA 3.0. On 21 October 1772 a son was born in the vicarage at Ottery St Mary to the Reverend John Coleridge, headmaster of the King's School and vicar of St Mary's Church. They named him Samuel Taylor Coleridge. He would grow up in The Chanter's House, the family's home, before going on t...

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Image: User:ianmacm | CC BY-SA 3.0

Ottery St Mary: The bishop who rebuilt a town

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit No machine-readable author provided. Wigulf~commonswiki assumed (based on copyright claims)., CC BY 2.5. St Mary's Church looks bigger than a town of seven thousand should have. That is because in 1335 John Grandisson, Bishop of Exeter, bought the manor and patronage of Ottery from Rouen Cathedral and converted the church into a collegiate foundation with forty members. Nikolaus Pev...

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Image: No machine-readable author provided. Wigulf~commonswiki assumed (based on copyright claims). | CC BY 2.5

Ottery St Mary: Pixies, ghosts, and other neighbours

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Touriste, Public domain. Ottery has more living folklore than most cathedrals. Each June, Pixie Day is celebrated. The legend says that when a local bishop ordered bells for the new church from Wales, the pixies feared the bells would end their rule over the land and cast a spell to redirect the monks ca...

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Image: Touriste | Public domain

Ottery St Mary: Fire and water

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Anthony Vosper, CC BY-SA 2.0. On 25 May 1866 a fire that started in a cottage chimney spread to a neighbouring schoolroom and then through the western quarter of the town. By the end of the day, one hundred houses had been destroyed and five hundred people made homeless, ten percent of the population at the t...

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Image: Anthony Vosper | CC BY-SA 2.0

Ottery St Mary: Things that endure

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Simon Cobb, CC0. The King's School, founded in 1335 by Bishop Grandisson as a choir school and refounded in 1545 by Henry VIII as a grammar school, is now a comprehensive Sports College of 1,100 students. In 1898 six young Ottery men living in London met on the steps of St Paul's Cathedral and re...

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Image: Simon Cobb | CC0