Earlier this month Cathedral City Guide attended the private view of the ‘BirdSong & Blossom’ international mosaic exhibition in the cathedral city of Exeter.

Website co-founder Sarah is a mosaic artist herself and one of her pieces is featured in the exhibition. This gave us the perfect reason to visit Exeter and combine two of our interests.

‘BirdSong & Blossom’, held at the Opus Mosaic gallery and studio shop on historic Fore Street, brings together pieces by more than 30 mosaic artists from across the UK and beyond.

We were particularly impressed by the range of techniques on display and materials used. Izabela Kartasinska’s mosaic, ‘Awakening’, for example, incorporated tree bark and slate.

Although it was fantastic to see Sarah’s mosaic on display, the ‘Best in Show’ award deservedly went to Paul Lebbern for his piece ‘BirdSong lost in and amongst the Blossom’.

The exhibition is free to view and runs until 29 June 2013. Many of the pieces are available for purchase. Opus Mosaic is open from 10:30 to 17:00, Tuesday to Saturday, and is located at 120 Fore Street, Exeter, EX4 3JQ (map).

See the Opus Mosaic website for photos of all the award-winning mosaics, or click on any of the images in our gallery below for a larger version.

We’re very pleased to report that our photo group on Flickr, ‘Cathedral Cities of Great Britain’, now has more than 1,500 photos.

I’d like to extend our thanks to all the 180 members who have shared their stunning photography with the group.

The 1,500th photo is this shot of Lichfield in Staffordshire, taken by Flickr user ‘Clanger’s England’. It shows, I believe, a row of Tudor buildings in historic Bore Street with the gothic-style Guildhall just visible on the right-hand side:

Lichfield, by Clanger’s England

Incidentally, Clanger’s England runs a website that has quite a lot in common with Cathedral City Guide: English Towns is a reference and information site about visiting and appreciating historic English Towns.

We’ve added it to our page of recommended links.

Telstar Hotel: full of Victorian character

Exeter’s 20-room Telstar may call itself a hotel, but it offers all the advantages of a traditional English B&B. The building is characterful, the breakfast exceptional, and the atmosphere convivial.

First though, the location. The Devon cathedral city of Exeter is small enough to explore on foot, and being on St David’s Hill the Telstar is well placed to take advantage of that. St Davids railway station is five minutes’ walk away in one direction and the city centre is 10 minutes in the other. You can even reach Exeter’s historic quay within 20 minutes.

We would encourage you to come by train, but limited parking is available at the hotel should you need it.

During our visit we stayed in one of the Telstar’s en-suite double rooms. Although not overly large, it offered some pleasing touches including a beautiful original fireplace (pictured below) and a view out into a Victorian tiled courtyard.

Admittedly the decor was a little dated, the curtains rather thin, but the Telstar has new owners and they are working hard to modernise the hotel. They have already put in free-to-use wi-fi, which came in useful for planning how to spend our time in Exeter.

Our room’s beautiful original fireplace

We also appreciated the mini cafetiere and the complimentary chocolates. (We appreciated the chocolates even more when they were replaced each day.)

Filtered water was provided in a glass bottle, one of the hotel’s many ‘green’ initiatives, and fresh milk for tea and coffee was available on request. The hairdryer in the room was serviceable if somewhat antique.

But the highlight of any good B&B is the breakfast, and the Telstar is no exception. Cooked to order, it is generous and delicious – while the light, airy dining room is the perfect setting.

Again it is the small touches that make it something special – from the homemade bread (cheese and onion on our first morning) to the quirky table decorations: lavender in old-fashioned milk bottles in lieu of vases.

We found this horny chap in the lounge

As a city, Exeter has learned to look to the future whilst safeguarding its unique character and history. The Telstar Hotel is in the middle of a similar transition. We wish the new owners the best of luck in their journey, and hope to catch up with them a little further down the road.

Update 12/05/13: The owners have just dropped us a note to say that they have “many plans for the Telstar refurbishment, including getting licensed and providing food and great coffee all day”.

• The Telstar Hotel is located on St David’s Hill in Exeter, Devon.

• Cathedral City Guide stayed there for three nights in May 2013 and paid £85 per night for an en-suite double room.

• Book a room at the Telstar using Booking.com.

The cathedral cities of Oxford, Norwich and Gloucester held more Heritage Open Days events in 2012 than any other local authority, according to recently released figures.

Taking place over a four-day period in September every year, Heritage Open Days offer free access to places across England that usually charge admission or are closed to the public.

Last year, Oxford put on 147 Heritage Open Days events, with Norwich holding 143 and Gloucester 127. Between them, the three cities accounted for 9% of the entire Heritage Open Days programme in what was a record year across the board: two million visitors took part in 4,600 events over the four days.

Video showcase

The following short video showcases some of the places and people that took part across Norwich in 2012, and gives a good feel for Heritage Open Days:

This year’s Heritage Open Days take place on Thursday 12 to Sunday 15 September. For more information see www.heritageopendays.org.uk – events listings will be available from mid-July. Of course, we’ll keep you updated here on Cathedral City Guide too.

Watching St George, by Garry Knight

St George’s Day, the feast day of England’s patron saint, is celebrated on 23 April – that’s next Tuesday.

Although the day is neither a national holiday, nor as popular as, say, St Patrick’s Day is in Ireland, there will still be plenty of St George’s Day events taking place either this weekend or on the day itself.

The cathedral city of Salisbury is well known for its annual St George’s Day celebrations and this year is no exception, with a family event being held at the Guildhall on Sunday. The free entertainment includes a traditional Punch and Judy puppet show.

Lichfield in Staffordshire celebrates on the Saturday; its free event includes ‘medieval arena displays of foot tournaments and encampment demonstrations’ as well as medieval shield making for the kids. Sounds great!

St George is also the patron saint of Scouting, and Exeter’s Scouts and Guides will hold their annual St George’s Day Parade through the city on Sunday, with the Lord Mayor taking ‘salute’ at the Guildhall.

If you know of any other St George’s Day celebrations taking place in one of England’s cathedral cities this year, we’d love to hear about them – email info@cathedralcityguide.co.uk or leave a comment at the bottom of this article.

Marischal College, Aberdeen, by John Dale

The cathedral cities of Chester and Aberdeen have both put themselves forward to become the UK City of Culture in 2017.

The pair will now compete for the title against Dundee, East Kent, Hastings and Bexhill on Sea, Hull, Leicester, Plymouth, Portsmouth and Southampton, Southend on Sea, and Swansea Bay. The East Kent area includes the cathedral city of Canterbury as well as the towns of Margate, Ashford and Folkestone.

The 11 competitors have until the end of the month to submit their initial bids. An independent panel will reveal a shortlist in June, with the winner announced in November.

That winning city will host a year of cultural events in 2017 to boost tourism, support the local economy, and bring the community together.

Held every four years, the national competition is organised by the Department for Media, Culture and Sport and is intended to build on the success of Liverpool’s year as European Capital of Culture 2008.

Prize worth winning

Aberdeen Lord Provost George Adam says: “Achieving the title would also boost the city’s profile on the national and international stage and do wonders for tourism and inward investment. This is a prize worth winning. A proud city like Aberdeen should be aiming high and I have no doubt that everyone will pull together to mount an extremely strong bid.”

Chester MP says Stephen Mosley says: “This announcement recognises the massive sea change that has occurred in Chester over the past few years. There is still much to do, but people in Chester are starting to be able to hold their head up high and be proud of our city.

“By 2017 Chester will once again be a world-class cultural destination, and I hope that this will be recognised in the following rounds of the competition.”

Along the River Exe, by Aaron Bihari

The Devon cathedral city of Exeter is the fourth happiest place to live in the UK, according to a recent study by Rightmove.

Almost 40,000 people were surveyed for this year’s ‘Happy at Home’ index, which took into account twelve distinct factors including recreation, property value and amenities.

Exeter, which last year came 10th overall, topped this year’s table for ‘neighbourliness’ and also scored well for ‘pride in your home’ and ‘community safety’.

Safe and houseproud

Other cathedral cities ranked highly in the index, with St Albans coming fifth (up from 13th last year) and Worcester 10th (up from 12th). People in Lincoln were found to be the most houseproud, while people in Hereford felt their city was the safest. Aberdeen was the happiest in place in Scotland, and came 17th in the whole of the UK.

Last year’s happiest place, the cathedral city of Carlisle, dropped down to a still very respectable 19th.

Righmove director Miles Shipside says: “Rightmove’s Happy At Home Index looks to capture how the British public truly feels about ‘home’ and gives us a view of the happiest places in the UK as rated by those who know best – the people who live there.”

This year’s survey was topped by the North Yorkshire spa town of Harrogate, which is a short bus ride from the cathedral city of Ripon.

In total, 110 places are included in the index. To find out how a particular city ranked either overall or for individual factors, see Rightmove’s interactive ‘Happy at Home’ tool.

Just a quick update to tell you about a couple of developments with Cathedral City Guide.

First up, we’ve added a ‘submit event’ form to our Events page. So if you think there’s something missing from our events calendar, it’s now even easier to let us know! Of course, you can always still email us if you prefer.

Second, if you use blog-reading service Bloglovin’, you can find Cathedral City Guide there too. We’ve even got a button to make it even easier to follow us:

So that’s what we’ve been up to – but we’re sure there’s lots more we could do. If there are any changes or improvements you’d like to see us make to the site, please let us know. As ever, our email address is info@cathedralcityguide.co.uk.

Oxford, by Dan

How would you like a free two-hour walking tour of Oxford for up to 15 people?

Well, you’re in luck, because that’s exactly what the people at Oxford City Walk are giving away as part of their birthday celebrations.

Not only that, but they are throwing in a £20 voucher to spend at The Cake Shop in Oxford Covered Market. Those cupcakes sure look good!

To be in with a chance of winning, simply ‘Like’ the Oxford City Walk Facebook page and share the link with someone else.

Oxford City Walk is a bookable private guiding service specialising in walking tours in and around the cathedral city of Oxford.

The draw will be made at the end of April 2013 and the voucher for the tour and the cake will remain valid until 31 March 2014. Good luck – and if you are fortunate enough to win, do let us know what you think of the tour.

You may not know this but Cathedral City Guide co-founder Sarah also happens to be a mosaic artist.

One of her pieces is being featured in an international mosaic exhibition in Exeter in May – which is a great excuse to combine two of our interests and visit the city.

Apart from the exhibition we have no firm plans, so we would love to hear your suggestions and recommendations for our time there.

If there’s a cafe or restaurant we should check out, or a museum or attraction we mustn’t miss, let us know and we’ll do our best to work it into our itinerary. And if possible, we’ll put a write-up on Cathedral City Guide afterwards.

I’ve already asked our amazing Twitter followers for their ideas and here are a few of the replies we’ve received:

@cathedralcities I loved the Old Firehouse oldfirehouseexeter.co.uk

— Amanda Mackey (@amandainyork) March 9, 2013

@cathedralcities Has to be @cafeat36 and @coffeedevon for #coffee #Exeter. But try tea @ #JollyRogerTeaRoom by the river.

— FancyaCuppa (@FancyaCuppaNow) March 9, 2013

@fancyacuppanow @cathedralcities @coffeedevon oh thank you very much for the recommendation! You could try @theprospect1 for a meal

— Cafeat36 (@CafeAt36) March 9, 2013

@cathedralcities try @magdalenchpt to stay!

— Cafeat36 (@CafeAt36) March 9, 2013

@cathedralcities Well, you have to start with @cafeat36! For great food and a warm welcome!

— Amia Online (@amiaonline) March 9, 2013

@cathedralcities check out heartofdevon.com

— Gill Stanley (@IscaGill) March 9, 2013

@cathedralcities @urbanburgerexe are brilliant! Well worth a visit!

— Julia Mckenzie-Grant (@Juliamc30) March 9, 2013

@cathedralcities thought of another restaurant for you to try in Exeter is @atangelas – it’s fab! And supports local food producers too!

— Cafeat36 (@CafeAt36) March 10, 2013

If you have any other suggestions please leave a comment at the bottom of this post or email us at info@cathedralcityguide.co.uk.