Beer

Beer is a working fishing village as well as a picturesque tourist attraction. Visitors can sit on the 'sun trap' beach at one of the beach cafés amongst the fishing boats and forget the world and its troubles.

Beer with its own small bay enclosed by chalk cliffs the village nestles in a valley with picturesque stone houses and cottages built on many different levels.

The beach is also a working beach for the fisherman whose families have fished here for generations and their fishing boats are still launched from the beach and winched back on to the shore.

The sheltered bay in the past allowed the fishermen of Beer to put to sea in weather which prevented other Devon and Dorset fishermen from leaving their more exposed beaches.

Fresh fish, crabs and scallops caught that day in the Bay can be bought from the fish mongers shop on the beach.

The seafaring skills of the Beer fishermen were put to use in the past to improve their impoverished lifestyles by making use of Beers isolation and to smuggle in contraband goods such as, brandy, tobacco and tea. Much of these smuggled goods were bought in from Alderney in the Channel Islands though some contraband goods were bought over from France.

With the Beer seaman gaining the reputation of being the ‘Kings of the Smugglers’ they soon attracted the attention of the Revenue Men and a constant game of ‘cat and mouse’ was played to seize the contraband goods and catch the smugglers and their accomplices.

Although Beer was first and foremost a fishing village, many of the past residents of Beer were Quarrymen engaged in the quarrying of the famous Beer Limestone.

With the coming of the Romans who founded their most westerly outpost in Exeter, Beer became a rich source of the lime stone the Romans needed for the construction of their most important buildings.

The Romans would have known that the chalk cliffs of Beer were a likely indication that the limestone they sought for, could be found nearby. It is probable that they would have investigated the foot of the cliffs from the beach in the hope of finding the signs of a limestone seam.

The seam of limestone can readily be seen at low tide on the western side of the beach at the foot of the cliffs. Just above the shingle is a layer of ‘greensand’ stone and above that is a narrow band of creamy coloured limestone.

Once found, the Romans would have wanted an easier location to quarry the stone than the beach and they found this in a limestone outcrop about a mile inland on the site of the present Beer Quarry caves.

Quarrying for this limestone has been going on in Beer for almost 2,000 years with the last removal of stone in the 1920’s.

Beer limestone has been used in many fine buildings locally the most well known being Exeter Cathedral.

Other famous buildings which have used Beer stone in their construction are Westminster Abbey, the Tower of London and London Bridge.

It was in the 16th century that Flemish refugees settled in Beer and bought with them the skills of lace making.

During fine weather the women of the village would sit at their doorways making full use of the light to create fine handmade lace.

Such was their skill that Queen Victoria commissioned the women lace makers of Beer to make the lace flounce of her wedding dress.

Now, Beer is a romantic Devon village visited by people from all over the world, in the summer months there are fishing and boat trips along the coast on one of the Beer Luggers.

The local fishermen still launch their boats from the beach landing their catches of fresh fish, crabs, lobsters and scallops and in the summer month’s visitors can get a hint of a fisherman’s life by going on a mackerel fishing trip.

Motor boats can be hired by the ½ hour or the hour and on fine summer evenings and weekends the dinghy’s of the Sailing club and the sailing luggers of Beer Luggers club are out in the bay.

A walk along Fore Street will take in tea shops and restaurants, art galleries, specialist small shops and welcoming Inns