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The Otter, Devon

Historical Description

Otter, The, a river of Devon. It rises on the E end of the Black Down Hills, at the boundary with Somerset, 6½ miles S of Taunton, and runs about 24 miles south-south-westward, past Honiton and Ottery St Mary, to the English Channel below Otterton, and 5 miles SW of Sidmouth. Its scenery over much of its run is very beautiful; its waters are famed for angling, and have been described as " rolling musically;" and its banks are the scene of the East Devon Otter Hounds' Hunt. Coleridge thus addresses it;-" Mine eyes I never shut amid the sunny ray, But straight with all their tints thy waters rise, Thy crossing plank, thy marge with willows gray, And bedded sand that, vein'd with various dyes, Gleam'd through thy bright transparence!"

Transcribed from The Comprehensive Gazetteer of England & Wales, 1894-5

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