Fairmile, Devon

"For the boat builder, see Fairmile Marine"

Fairmile is a hamlet in the English county of Devon. It lies on the former A30 trunk road approximately convert|6|mi|km west of Honiton, where this road crosses the Talaton to Ottery St Mary road, in the valley of the River Tale. Fairmile belongs partly to the civil parish of Talaton and partly to that of Ottery St Mary.

The hamlet consists of a handful of houses, including the Fairmile Inn (now closed), and a disused post office and former blacksmith's workshop. About convert|400|yd|-2 away is Escot Church, built in 1840 by Sir John Kennaway, the owner of nearby Escot House.

In 1999 the A30 through Fairmile was re-routed to a newly built dual carriageway section, about ¼ mile to the north of the previous road.

Fairmile Road Protest

For a few years prior to the completion of the new A30 between Honiton and Exeter, Fairmile was the main focus of direct action protest activities against the new road, with permanent camps on both sides of the river valley. These camps, known amongst protesters as Trollheim and Fairmile, included a number of tree houses and networks of underground tunnels and bunkers. The occupants of the camps were eventually evicted in January 1997 by Bailiffs acting for the Under-Sheriff of Devon, who were later joined by specialist climbing and caving experts. This was amid considerable national publicity, and led to the temporary celebrity status of the final occupant of one the Fairmile tunnels, Daniel Hooper, known by his nickname 'Swampy'.

References

* [http://www.devon.gov.uk/etched?url=etched/ixbin/hixclient.exe&_IXP_=1&_IXR=110512 Devon Libraries Local Studies Service, Escot Community Page]

External links

* [http://www.geocities.com/rainforest/3081/pp3_loga.html Diary of the Fairmile road protest evictions]