Was it a kangaroo, a balloon or the Devil? That is the question that remains unanswered 160 years after Devon's biggest mystery.
The case of the Devil's footprints will be known to many local as the story is passed on from generation to generation.
On this day, 8th February in 1855, residents around the River Exe woke to find strange footprints in the snow along roads, up walls, on roofs and, perhaps most worryingly, right outside their front doors.
The 'cloven footprints' lead to a mystery that hit the front pages of national newspapers – raising the question had The Prince of Darkness visited the sleepy village?
In the Times the footprints were described as "more like that of a biped than a quadruped, and the steps were generally eight inches in advance of each other. The impressions of the feet closely resembled that of a donkey's shoe, and measured from an inch and a half to two and a half inches across."
The newspaper went on to report: "Considerable sensation has been evoked in the towns of Topsham, Lympstone, Exmouth, Teignmouth and Dawlish, in the south of Devon, in consequence of the discovery of a vast number of foot-tracks of a most strange and mysterious description. The superstitious go so far as to believe that they are the marks of Satan himself; and that great excitement has been produced among all classes may be judged from the fact that the subject has been descanted on from the pulpit."
The foot-tracks were discovered on the morning of Friday, February 9 1855, after a big dump of snow had covered the region during the night. South Devon residents were aghast to see a virgin-white landscape pock-marked with what The Times described as, "the tracks of some strange and mysterious animal, endowed with the power of ubiquity, as the footprints were to be seen in all kinds of inaccessible places – on the tops of houses and narrow walls, in gardens and courtyards enclosed by high walls and palings, as well as in open fields. There was hardly a garden in Lympstone where the footprints were not observed."
"The track appeared more like that of a biped than a quadruped, and the steps were generally eight inches in advance of each other. The impressions of the feet closely resembled that of a donkey's shoe , and measured from an inch-and-a-half to two-and-a-half inches across. Here and there it appeared as if cloven, but in generality the shoe was continuous, and, from the snow in the centre remaining entire, merely showing the outer crest of the foot, it must have been convex."
The tracks were recorded in a long list of places zigzagging almost 100 miles from Topsham to Totnes.
The full list of areas the Devil was supposed to have visited that night were listed as: Exmouth, Withycombe Raleigh, East Budleigh, Bicton, Woodbury, Clyst St George, Topsham, Lympstone, Powderham, Kenton, Starcross, Mamhead, Dawlish, Luscombe, Teignmouth, Newton Abbot, Torquay and finally Totnes.
In one place they led up to a 12-foot wall, ended abruptly, and continued on the other side – without the snow at the top being disturbed. The tracks led to the Exe River (near Powdersham Castle) where they entered the water, only to continue on the other side of what is a very wide part of the estuary at Lympstone. In another place they ceased at the mouth of a drainpipe and reappeared at the other end as if the creature had somehow passed through the pipe.
The Times added "The creature seems to have approached the doors of several houses and then to have retreated, but no one has been able to discover the standing or resting point of this mysterious visitor."
Many answers have been put forward for the phenomenon, one of the most agreed upon is that Devonport Dockyard had released an experimental balloon by mistake and it had travelled across the area trailing its mooring shackles.
Most of the other explanations given revolve around animals. The most bizarre being that a kangaroo had escaped from the private zoo near Sidmouth owned by a Mr Fische.
However the mystery still continues and has inspired many a book and play since the fateful morning.
It will be up to the reader's to decide and answer the question did the Devil really visit us 160 years ago…. And will he return?
